(Wikimedia Commons)

Over at Poynter, Tom Rosenstiel talks about China’s recent censorship protests.  “It is telling that the protests in China this week over government control involve a newspaper and censorship–not a military tank in a public square.”  About half of China’s population is online.  Rosenstiel discusses how the web causes interesting fractures in what kind of information gets shared (many Chinese willing to talk movies and music, very few about politics).  While the web provides an equalizer of sorts (or the opportunity for equality) in international information trade, repressive governments find a way to study and adapt to new technologies (better, faster, stronger than journalists?).

Looking up to The New York Times. (Flickr Creative Commons: ScooteRoo)

The New York Times’ Public Editor Margaret Sullivan wrote a post that reads between the lines of the Chinese government’s censorship of the Times’ Chinese-language site.  China blocked the site after the paper ran a story looking into the extreme wealth of the Chinese prime minster’s family.

Sullivan’s post looks into how the Times’ decision to run the predictably explosive piece creates a rift between the editorial staff and the paper’s advertisers, whose pricey ads aren’t seeing the light of day in China.  “I’m very proud of this work,” Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. said to Sullivan.  “Our business is to publish great journalism.  Does this have a business impact?  Of course.”