I would argue that the difference between "western" (Hollywood, NY Times, WaPo, Fox News, Newsmax) and "eastern" propoganda (CCTV, Xinhua, etc) is that the western outlets are a bit more sophisticated. Propaganda from the "west" is relatively robust, in that even in the absence of government censorship, the majority of consumers of western propaganda still maintain their beliefs even when they observe contrary evidence/information. Propaganda from the "east" is much less robust and thus requires a comprehensive government censorship infrastructure (Great Firewall) to maintain consumer engagement. Perhaps with time, media outlets in China will catch up to the level of sophistication of the west and that may be the day that government censorship controls of foreign media come down in China.

> Wait, is there a difference, or is it just a matter of scope?

Scope I think is the main indicator. The stranglehold on information in and out of China is very strong, aided by the media being state-run and by the Great Firewall. CNN and NYT clearly are left leaning, but I'd say what happens in China has more in common with Fox, which increasingly over the years has devolved from simply a counter-biased to most news providers, to what amounts to the propaganda arm for the Republicans.

> What is surprising to me is the nonchalant approach to fake news western media is prone to when it comes to both domestic as well as foreign issues.

This is very frustrating indeed. Fox has, since it's inception been droning on and on about how left-leaning the main press is, but instead of simply accepting their bias, they seem deadly intent on proving them wrong all the time (which is of course ridiculous, because Fox is never going to say they aren't biased) and as a result they constantly fall into the trap of false equivalence instead of trying to find the Truth of a given situation, simply presenting both sides of a given argument. Their coverage of Climate Change is especially troubling in this regard because it paints the situation as though it's still unresolved, when in fact the anti-CC scientific community is laughably, hilariously outnumbered by the pro-CC community. It's not even a contest, I think the last number I saw was something like 97%-3%.

> So, yes China is going bad things, but come on NYT

In addition to scope though, I think severity is another one. Basically, how far they have to stretch a given truth to put out what they clearly want to put out. The NYT always has a certain spin, but typically they aren't stretching facts too hard, mostly just editorializing over facts, which in my opinion there's nothing wrong with. I don't think it's reasonable to expect a journalist to completely shed any and all opinions when writing a story, especially when they can cite relevant information to back up their position. In fact, I'd go so far as to say when a journalist has spent a fair amount of time getting immersed in a given topic, I'd very much like to hear their editorializing, because it's likely from a fairly informed viewpoint.

But, I also say all of this as someone who thinks centrism and balance in news coverage is greatly overvalued; I'd much rather see journalism that chases down the truth, and figures out which side has it more right, even if they don't always get it right themselves. I think the modern "just the facts" reporting has done a great disservice to our critical thinking abilities.

The NYT calling others out for fake news is itself propaganda: the NYT routinely engages in fake news, but is fighting to portray itself as reputable while others engaged in the same aren’t.

Like when the NYT completely blew the Covington story, due to its institutional animosity towards white people:

> The New York Times, sober guardian of the exact and the nonsensational, had cannonballed into the delicious story on Saturday, titling its first piece “Boys in ‘Make America Great Again’ Hats Mob Native Elder at Indigenous Peoples March.”

They were forced to print a retraction less than 24 hours later when facts contradicted their racism.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/media-must...

>serious socialistic regime on the left and right

What's the connection between "great propaganda power" and "serious socialistic regime"?

Also what's a "socialistic regime on the right"?

Socialism requires a powerful centralized government. Powerful centralized governments have the means to great propaganda power since they control most of the media, and they usually need to use that power because the people won't always like the choices the government makes for them.

Although left and right are ambiguous terms, a generally agreed upon example of a socialistic regime on the right is Nazi Germany. Nazi is short for National Socialism. Whereas Soviet Communism was a socialist system with a goal of spreading throughout the world by a series of revolutions, National Socialism was a socialist system with a goal of spreading throughout the world via German conquest. Both aspired to world domination, but the means were different.

Not the person you were replying to but there's this strange idea amongst alt-right folks that Nazis were socialists because the party called itself the National Socialist party. Could be referring to that.

There was a genuinely "left-wing" part of the Nazi party (Strassurists)[1], though they along with their leader (Ernst Rohm)[2] were purged in the night of the long knives (also known as the Rohm purge)[3]

The Germans had a term for communists who swapped to the Nazi party - Beefsteak Nazis[4]. Brown on the outside and red on the inside.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strasserism

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_R%C3%B6hm

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beefsteak_Nazi

Interestingly, these same folks are somehow able to see through the "Democratic Republic" part of "Democratic People's Republic of Korea". An odd blind spot.

It's not a blind spot. They are not conservatives, they do not believe in liberty and God-given individual rights. Actual alt-righters oppose capitalism and believe in economically socialist and communitarian ideas. Similarly but to a lesser degree, "far-right" parties in Europe are oftentimes more economically socialist than their mainstream center-left and center-right opponents. Le Pen vs Macron is an example.

I'm not sure what you mean by "alt-right..." Usually that means something specific (For a good summary see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHXL00wY3nY). Among the people who have written about how the National Socialists were socialists is Jonah Goldberg (see https://www.amazon.com/Liberal-Fascism-American-Mussolini-Po...), whom you might not like, but is not alt-right, in that he disagrees with the alt-right on almost everything.

I don't see how the Nazi's were right-wing, seems pretty clear based on their excessively centralized government that they were more left-wing than not.

Here we go again...

Seriously, it's not difficult to understand that any majorly autocratic government, left or right, needs a centralized government by definition.

That is got nothing to do with being left or right, but with being liberal or autocratic.

Well ideas on the left of the political spectrum generally demand larger more centralized governments, because it's required to implement heavy-handed government interventions; whereas, ideas on the right, traditionally, are about smaller government and therefore tend to have much less of a centralized government.

Note I say ideas here, because the reality is e.g. the republicans in the US are for the most part big government politicans despite being on the right, but that seems more a bastardization of the traditional right, which historically is about smaller government.

So generally speaking, because left wing political ideas tend to involve big government, it means that centralization is generally more extensive in left wing governments, and I would argue thus left wing governments are more liable to be autocratic.

These things sound like a kind of socialism to me (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism#Economics).

"Various work programs designed to establish full-employment for the German population were instituted once the Nazis seized full national power. Hitler encouraged nationally supported projects like the construction of the Autobahn highway system, the introduction of an affordable people's car (Volkswagen) and later the Nazis bolstered the economy through the business and employment generated by military rearmament. The Nazis benefited early in the regime's existence from the first post–Depression economic upswing, and this combined with their public works projects, job-procurement program and subsidised home repair program reduced unemployment by as much as 40 percent in one year. ... Upon being appointed Chancellor in 1933, Hitler promised measures to increase employment, protect the German currency, and promote recovery from the Great Depression. These included an agrarian settlement program, labor service, and a guarantee to maintain health care and pensions."

Of course, you could say that Republicans in the United States have also done some of these things, but again, that would be Socialism on the right.

Nation-scale political movements are rarely 100% or 0% anything, but I don't see how you could read that entire section and go "yup, that all sounds like socialism". Opposition to social welfare, soliciting the involvement of businesses, going after unions and the left.

Vox has a pretty good explainer of the differences between Hitler's National Socialism and socialism. https://www.vox.com/2019/3/27/18283879/nazism-socialism-hitl...

Socialistic ~= command economy, state ownership or heavy control of economy. USSR, PRC, imperial Japan and various fascist regimes in Europe (Germany, Italy).

Sorry, but I have to correct you that PRC is running "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" after 1978, and is totally different from your narrative: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism_with_Chinese_charact..., you can think it as a kind of national running capitalism.