In The Times, the reporting was entrepreneurial, independent, analytical and was striving to make sense of what happened. In the case of the Chinese media's coverage of its own nationwide environmental ills, the coverage was characterized by dull, straightforward publishing of seemingly true statements that, while they filled the page, did very little to illuminate the truth. It's almost like the editors of those stories didn't want their readers to be interested in this serious issue.

And that made me think: What a difference the First Amendment makes.

A river in China

The independent, questioning analytic tone that American media consumers have come to expect from the best U.S. media just doesn't exist in China, where the media have no legal protection equivalent to the Constitutional shield afforded free speech in the U.S.

Instead, Chinese media, while in most cases not directly government controlled, are viewed as an extension of government policy, a tool intended to help the government drive its social and economic agenda. That's what the government expects and usually manages to get. And news organizations that cross the line into the gray zone of independent reporting can have bad things happen.

The government can suspend their licenses to publish. Chinese courts can slap them with fines for writing factual stories that embarrass state-owned companies. Editors get "reassigned" for handling controversial stories. Offensive blog posts will vanish from social media portals. China is simply a tough place to be an independently minded reporter or editor.

And most Chinese news consumers, who value societal harmony much more than journalistic independence, are OK with the way things are. There's remarkably little awareness of this issue among news consumers I speak with and even academics in China who study society and media.

Consider this recent letter to the editor that appeared in the China Daily: "Media are like fire . They are a vital part of our lives, but in the wrong hands they become lethal and disastrous. That is why good parents don't let their children play with fire. At the moment, the Chinese media are acting like children playing with fire. When will the parents (read as government) intervene?"

Or this recent column written by the director of a large university's communications research center on the subject of the possible purchase by Chinese investors of Newsweek, the U.S. news magazine. "Standards of news reporting also have to be kept high. Confuse news and propaganda and the magazine's credibility will plummet." So far so good. But then: "Investors should also be aware of lingering Western prejudices and stereotypes about China, and recruit a professional team with a global vision to correct them."

China is a place that has undergone an economic miracle unmatched in human history. It is a place that has come so far in so short a period because of its unique marriage between top-down government control and bottom-up evolution in its society. A free and vigorous press, which doesn't exist here, has had little role in the country's development except to act as a mouthpiece for the top-down forces and a release valve for the bottom up forces.

I can't help but worry that, with a growing set of emerging societal ills such as crime, pollution and wealth disparities, China needs a free and vigorous press to help air the issues and provide voice to the diverse interests that are shaping the country.