To highlight the growing importance of China, the Time-Warner empire just started a blog solely devoted to China and only China (click here to view the Time’s China Blog). To me, the interesting development is that a number of folks in blog land are blasting it pretty good for being too mainstream, not terribly insightful and/or too PC (click here and enjoy these comments/discussion thread in particular).

As I read over these comments on this China Law Blog posting, I could not help but think that at times it is good for all of us to step back and evaluate where we get our business news and what the agenda of the author/publisher may be — whether its blog land, the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, the Financial Times, NY Times, Time, Newsweek, Business Week, Fox, NPR, CNN, our parents, etc., etc., etc. Each source we read, watch and listen to for our business news and information has its strengths and weaknesses. For example, I read the Wall Street Journal, religiously, and LOVE its reporting, writing and journalism, but its daily editorials with their “business can never do wrong” koolaid make me gag, literally, and I teach in a business school!!; yet that obnoxiousness does not keep me from making sure I read this paper every day. I read the NY Times for different views and perspectives and a different style of journalism, and some of its stuff on China is great and other stuff is not worth a hoot. Similarly, I can’t stand Fox News (generally) but I do watch Bill O’Reilly because every now and then I learn something from him and that huge chip of rage he has on his shoulder. Heck, I do what I can in the limited time I have to blog, but even the Cal Poly MBA Trip to China blog has its strengths and weaknesses.

In the OCOB business school, I think we do a pretty good job of exposing you to business news (or trying). For example, in addition to your free online subscriptions, on the second floor of the building we also provide students with a free hard copies of the WSJ and NY Times, in part because those two papers have given us a good price AND both papers write a lot about cutting edge business issues and they have become two of the premier national and international papers out there. And, by having what some perceive as a “conservative paper” and what some perceive as a “liberal paper” in our hallways, no silly conspiracy theories can develop that the OCOB is trying to brainwash students into believing one thing or the other. We also do the same for you re: the local SLO Telegram-Tribune because as a college we feel strongly that if you are going to school here you need to read about and be educated about local community and business issues.

But my point is this and may sound a bit cliche’:

At the end of the day read … A LOT … and get your business news from different mix of good sources. This will help you be informed and as educated as possible about the world. Also, be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of each outlet and use some of the tools you learned in your Quant Analysis course to evaluate whether the data backing up a claim in any article or blog post is legit or bogus.

Nobody is perfect, including this blog, but if you read a lot and think deeply about what you read (even when you read the work of those you may not agree with) we can better see whether what our parents told us about the world and how to view it is true or false, and whether our own perceptions are on strong footing or thin ice.

I previously did a post on this PBS special on China that started to air last week.

Per this KCET link, it looks like parts 3 and 4 to this series air this week (”Shifting Nature” and “Freedom and Justice”), Wednesday, January 17, starting at 9:00 pm.

I enjoyed the first part (”Power to the People” and “Women of the Country”), very much, and look forward to catching the last two.