By: Mark Flatten

In the aftermath of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Human Rights Watch produced a series of articles decrying China’s iron-fisted restrictions on the news media. Despite a provision in the Chinese constitution guaranteeing a free press, those lofty notions are mere words on paper in a society ruled by Communist despots, those reports makes clear.

Chinese journalists who violate the government’s propaganda directives are fired. The most troublesome offenders face imprisonment on charges such as “revealing state secrets” or “inciting subversion.”

Most compelling is the story of Chang Ping, a former editor who wrote on his personal blog that he fears being labeled a champion of independent journalism in China.

“I am afraid of other people praising me as a brave newspaperman, because I know I am full of fears in my heart,” Mr. Chang wrote. “What I’ve practiced most is avoiding risk. Self-censorship has become part of my life. It makes me disgusted with myself.”

Soon after, Mr. Chang was fired.

American journalists could soon face those same fears. There is talk of the federal government stepping in to prop up the nation’s financially battered news industry, the only private enterprise singled out for protection in the U.S. Constitution.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), in a discussion draft published in May, outlined a series of steps the federal government could take to reinvigorate conventional newspapers and television stations, which face stiff competition for advertising revenues from the Internet, the bad economy, and their own bad business decisions.