ARTICLE: "Chinese Bloggers Stage Hoax Aimed at Censorship Debate," by Geoffrey A. Fowler and Juying Qin, Wall Street Journal, 14 March 2006, p. B3.

ARTICLE: "Rock 'n' Rolling Into China: Rolling Stone Has Launched A Chinese Edition--Minus The Sex, Drugs and Politics," by Geoffrey A. Fowler, Wall Street Journal, 10 March 2006, p. B1.

Those gnarly Chinese bloggers fooled Western media into thinking a huge crackdown had occurred. How? They all just voluntarily and secretly shut down their blogs one day.

Why, you may ask?

In an interview, Beijing-based journalist Wang Xiaofeng of Massage Milk says he shut his blog down to make a point about freedom of speech--just one directed at the West instead of Beijing. He calls the Western press "irresponsible" and says that the hoax was designed "to give foreign media a lesson that Chinese affairs are not always the way you think."

"They are not just supposed to report based on their own perceptions, without understanding the circumstances in China," he says ...

Buddy, the press reports everything here in the States based on gossiping among one another, why the hell should it be any different in China?

Gotta wonder what all the Western doom-and-gloomers on web censorship in China had to say on this one. If I wasn't so busy packing up the apartment, I would surf the web on this one.

And yet the Western media keep coming. Esquire has had a China edition for years (I've been reprinted there in Chinese), and now so does Rolling Stone, just quieted down a bit (What? No Lindsey Lohan on the cover spilling out of her blouse?)

I guess RS is just adjusting to the local circumstances ...