”To the People’s Republic of China” – from 4 leading newspapers from the Nordic | Hacker News Reader

”To the People’s Republic of China” – from 4 leading newspapers from the Nordic

dn.se

11 pointsnabla99 comments

The writing on the wall has been clear for Hong Kong ever since the HK police turned violent against the protesters. Yes it's an outcome of horrific consequences for the people of Hong Kong but they need to rebuild in another place as other great cities have been rebuilt in the past.

In 2019, the same editor-in-chief (Peter Wolodarski) published a full-page ad with Chinese Hong Kong propaganda.

https://www.svt.se/kultur/kinesiska-staten-annonserar-om-hon...

Yes, and they published counter-propaganda from HK protestors.

Advertisement is propaganda.

Oh boy do I look forward to hearing what you mean by this.

"act of influencing people by changing their attitudes and perceptions regarding the way they view certain products, services and even beliefs."

(In the 20th century, the term propaganda is often associated with a manipulative approach, but historically, propaganda has been a neutral descriptive term)

> Yes, and they published counter-propaganda from HK protestors.

I would not be surprised if they did, but I hadn’t heard of this. Do you have a reference?

> Advertisement is propaganda.

I don’t disagree, but Wolodarski (at the time) fashioned DN as a neutral observer. As he is publishing this opinion piece under his editor-in-chief title, I can only assume he has changed stances (or maybe he just doesn’t want SvD’s editor-in-chief to be in the list of authors instead of him).

> I can only assume he has changed stances

I don't see how that is different stance. You can oppose Chinese government and still allow them to buy ads in moderation to get their message trough.

They are not in every front confrontation against Chinese government and neither is their readership or their government.

Obviously you can do that (since they’ve done it), but it severely limits your credibility when you do speak out.

I think it improves their credibility. They did approve it after some consideration. https://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/peter-wolodarski-om-kritik...

Newspapers have positions on free speech and human rights, but they are not supposed to be are not political crusaders who shut down everything they don't approve.

If being adult who understands nuances is not being credible, this world is wrong.

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