A blow to freedom of the press? I think not.

When the Mainland Affairs Council decided to eject two Chinese reporters-- one from Xinhua and the other from the Communist Party's mouthpiece, The People's Daily--earlier this week, we were blessed with the unsurprising hue and cry from the KMT and the biased media outlets that tacitly support the pan-blues.

We were told that ejecting the two reporters was a blow to Taiwan's burgeoning democracy, that freedom of the press was now on its knees begging for mercy and that by sending the reporters back the government would irreparably damage cross-strait relations. We were, so to speak, invited to a horsefeathers banquet.

Just because these reporters work for news agencies doesn't make them real journalists; they are nothing more than hacks for the Chinese Communist Party. They have no interest in balance, fairness, getting at the truth or even reporting the facts. They are paid to file stories that confirm what the boys in Zhongnanhai want to hear. The stories must fill out the narrative that Taiwan is the Rebel Province brimming with evil splittists trying to lead the good people of Taiwan astray on their inexorable journey to "reunification."

How anyone can pretend that these people are anything more than the cogs of a propaganda mill or outright spies baffles...