China will require its 250,000 journalists to pass a 'Marxism test'

Benjamin Carlson globalpost.com A newspaper vendor looks out from her booth on a street in Shanghai in January 2013. After a year in which Chinese media tested the government's restrictions, the Party is now requiring journalists to pass a Marxism exam in order to keep working. (Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images) HONG KONG — Journalists across China are now boning up on Marxist terminology like the “labor theory of value” and “commodity fetishism.” The United States “is bent on undermining China” — that’s a “fact” they’re committing to memory. Their jobs depend on it. Thanks to a new regulation promulgated last fall, all 250,000 of China’s journalists and editors will have to pass an exam on the “Marxist view of journalism” in January or February of 2014. In the several months leading up to the exam, the government has mandated that reporters take weekly classes to ensure “political consistency” with the Communist Party line. to read more click here: globalpost.com