internet - 5 Misconceptions in the Western media
Benjamen Walker

Holy cow, we had here a US journalist, even connected to the famous Berkman Centre for society and internet, for less than a week and he actually got it. He lists five misconceptions, here in a dispatch by World Changing (first discovered by Andrea):

Misconception 3: There are 30,000 to 50,000 "Internet police" who do nothing but
monitor people's email, web surfing, etc.
Truth: This is a number invented by officials for official propaganda missives, aimed at the national media, not Western reporters, who nonetheless take up information ministry press releases as legitimate and use them as source material.

Read on for more later at Ben's weblog. Guess you have to be a journalist to do the more obvious thing: go to a place and talk to people.