"The notion that journalism can regularly produce a product that violates the fundamental interests of media owners and advertisers…is absurd." - Robert McChesney, journalist and authorEditorial independence is a Western talking point often invoked by Propaganda journals to show they're not controlled by anyone. BBC says the same stuff.
At the end of they day, their bills are paid by its owner company (in this case Alibaba). I refuse to believe that a parent company has no power over how its subsidiary functions.
Jack Ma doesn't screen each and every article but he can certainly nudge SCMP to go in a specific direction.
Asked to give a toast before the prestigious New York Press Club in 1880, JOHN SWINTON, the former Chief of Staff at the New York Times, made this candid confession [it's worth noting that Swinton was called "The Dean of His Profession" by other newsmen, who admired him greatly]:
"There is no such thing, at this date of the world’s history, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job.
If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell the country for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press. We are the tools and vassals of the rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes." - John Swinton, the former Chief of Staff, The New York Times, New York Press Club.