Freedom of the Press in Russia

Journalists in Mexico are being killed by drug lords.

And here's a story from Yahoo about a journalist in Russia:

A leading Russian journalist was in a coma on Saturday after two men broke his legs, jaw and fingers in an attack which his editor said was likely to be linked to his coverage of banned opposition groups.

Rights groups have criticized the Kremlin for doing too little to solve a string of journalists' murders that have made Russia one of the most dangerous places in the world for reporters.

Police said they had opened a criminal case over the attempted murder of Oleg Kashin, 30, a political reporter with Kommersant, Russia's best respected general daily newspaper.

"They didn't just rough him up. To make their point they broke the fingers of a journalist," Kommersant editor Mikhail Mikhailin told Reuters. "I'm stunned."

Mikhailin said the motive was unclear, but likely to be linked to Kashin's recent investigations into extremist youth groups, including banned opposition group the National Bolshevik Party.

"He undertook investigations into various informal organizations. I feel something he wrote might have upset someone who decided to take these vicious measures," he said.

Meanwhile in America... can you compare these journalists who risk their lives to tell the truth with the sold-out, paid-for pretend journalists of Fox "News"? Real journalists report about the bad guys. At Fox they are the paid lap dogs of the bad guys. At Fox they aren't journalists, they are paid mouthpieces whose job it is to shape "the news" to sell the interests of the rich and powerful at the expense of the broad public.

Here's what a Tulane University political scientist has to say about US "news" coverage:

So why are Americans so fearful, so conscious of threats? He blames, in part, the manipulative nature of current television news. "Fear is an essential component of the business model of both CNN and Fox News, a necessary tool to keep fingers away from remote controls during commercial breaks. Voices of reason tend to spoil the fun, and may inspire people to see excitement elsewhere. News outlets win by presenting stories that are more frightening, angry and simple than those of their competitors. … "

One of the victims of this system, he goes on to argue, is poor old reasonable President Obama: "Only in a deeply pathological society is reason a synonym for weakness."