China Digital Times

China news tagged with: journalists (68)

• Interview with Liu Jianqiang: Environmental Journalism and Censorship in China

  

  Asia Society interviewed environmental journalist Liu Jianqiang about journalism, new media, and the environmental movement in China. A former investigative reporter for Southern Weekend, Liu is now a columnist and associate editor for China Dialogue:

  NS: What are the various impediments to environmental journalism in China and how has this changed over time?

  LJ: The environment in China is not politics; politics is very sensitive. Journalists do find it easier to report about the environment. But my question has always been who is really harming China’s environment? It’s not you, me or the common people. It’s the huge interest groups out there. From local governments to companies and corporations, there are huge stakes in maximizing profit.

  When we highlight these stories, journalists are threatened by companies and local governments. This one instance, when a colleague and I were reporting about the Tiger Leaping Gorge dam in Yunnan province – my colleague was detained for four hours and when we did publish the article, the hydropower company called us and told me that the report was false and asked us to issue a public apology.

  » Read more
  • January 14, 2010 4:06 PM

• Crusading Editor Fights New War on Censorship

  

  The Independent looks at Hu Shuli’s new journalism venture after leaving Caijing:

  “What are our goals at Century Weekly? The answer is simple: Support professional journalism, push forward reforms in China, and protect the public’s right to know while chronicling, objectively and thoughtfully, our nation in transition. We firmly believe this is a valuable and achievable objective at this critical stage of national history.”

  The debut issue of Century Weekly is slick – in fact, it looks very much like Caijing – and has a mixed bag of stories. There are reports about electric cars, corruption in football and an edgy tale about the controversial jailing of Li Zhuang, a Beijing lawyer representing gang bosses in Chongqing, who claims he was convicted after being denied due process.

  Billed as a new publication, Century Weekly is actually more of a relaunch of an obscure magazine produced by a think-tank, the China Institute for Reform and Development.

  The Communist Party has relaxed rules on reporting on some of the issues the magazine deals with, such as disaster coverage and corruption, although criticism of the party itself is not tolerated. Ms Hu has a helpful background in that regard, at least. She cut her teeth at the Workers’ Daily, although her sympathy with the victims of the Tiananmen Square crackdown cost her points with the leadership.

  » Read more
  • January 13, 2010 1:51 PM

• Scribe Gets 16 Years in Mine Accident Coverup

  

  A journalist has been sentenced to 16 years in prison for accepting bribes in the cover-up of a mining disaster in the lead-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. From China Daily:

  Li Junqi, former director of the Hebei bureau of Farmers’ Daily, is believed to be the first of the 10 reporters involved in the scandal to receive criminal punishment.

  Thirty-four miners and a rescuer died after a blast ripped through the Lijiawa mine in Yuxian county on July 14, 2008, three weeks before the start of the Beijing Olympics.

  According to local media reports, mine bosses relocated bodies, destroyed evidence and paid the journalists 2.6 million yuan ($380,000) to cover up the disaster, keeping the tragedy from appearing in newspapers for 85 days.

  Following a State Council probe into the accident, the 10 journalists confessed to taking bribes, resulting in the prosecution of 48 local officials.

  The identities of the 10 journalists have not been made public, but reports claim Guan Jian, a Beijing journalist from China Internet Weekly, and Li were among them.

  » Read more
  • January 5, 2010 9:31 PM

• Veteran Hong Kong Journalist, Once Jailed, Calls it Quits

  

  Ching Cheong, Hong Kong-based correspondent for Straits Times, is retiring to write a book about his career, including the three years he spent in Chinese prison. From Asia Sentinel:

  Ching Cheong, a Hong Kong journalist who became an international cause célèbre when he lured over the border from Hong Kong and arrested on dubious charges of spying in China in 2005 and sentenced to five years in prison, has retired to write a book giving his observations on 35 years in journalism.

  Ching was freed in January 2008 and returned to his job as China bureau chief for the Straits Times of Singapore. The arrest was the first of a Hong Kong journalist after the handover of the former British colony in 1997. Given the unwillingness or inability of the Hong Kong government to intervene, the case was deeply unsettling to the territory’s press establishment.

  It was also an embarrassment for Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang, who had been careful not to offend Beijing, and for the Hong Kong government because it tested the edged of the vaunted one country, two systems slogan that is supposed to guarantee civil liberties in the former colony. To this day, Chinese reporters in Hong Kong — whether mainlanders or Hong Kongers — are unsure whether they might be turned over to Chinese authorities for journalistic transgressions.

  Tsang was criticized during his election campaign for refusing to see Ching’s wife when she requested a meeting to ask for his help. During Ching’s incarceration, however, the Hong Kong Security Bureau contacted his wife once or twice a week with updates on her husband’s case.

  » Read more
  • December 14, 2009 2:16 PM

• Chai Jing (柴静): A Country We Can Be Proud Of

  

  Recently, Chai Jing delivered a speech at the 2009 Beijing Journalists Assocation’s speech competition. Chai is a famous investigative reporter for CCTV, and also blogs regularly on bullog.com, among other platforms.

  Ten years ago, on a plane from Lhasa to Beijing, I sat next to a woman in her fifties. Thirty years ago, she left to aid Tibet. Now needing medical treatment, she left Tibet for Beijing for the first time. We were met with heavy rainfall as we deboarded, and I took her to a hotel in Beijing. After a week, I went to see her. She said she had received a definite diagnosis: late-stage stomach cancer. She pointed to a box on top of her bed and said, “If I am not able to go back, help keep this safe for me.” Inside were records of her thirty years’ worth of conversations over all parts of Tibet, with all kinds of officials, Han nationality people, lamas, and female escorts. She had no occupational identity and knew these things could not be released. She only said, “One hundred years from now, if people see this, they might know what today’s Tibet has become.” This woman’s surname was Xiong, one of Lhasa’s women teachers.

  Five years ago, I interviewed someone. This person had purchased a 1.5 kuai bottle of water on the train, and then asked a train attendant for a receipt, to which the attendant replied, “We have never given out receipts on this train.” After that, this person sued the Ministry of Railroads and said “People in the face of greatness and power will always choose to obey. Today, if we give up a 1.5 kuai receipt, tomorrow we might give up our land rights, property rights, and our lives. If we do not struggle for our rights, our rights will only remain a sheet of paper.” He later won the lawsuit, and I thought there would be some hard feelings left between him and the Ministry of Railroads. The outcome was that when he later got on a train and ordered a meal from the dining car, the conductor personally brought the meal and said, “After you finish eating, I’ll come by again with something.” I asked him what he depended on in order to win respect, and he said he depended on the entirety of his struggle for rights. This person is Hao Jinsong, a 34-year-old lawyer.

  Last year, I met someone; we ate lunch together. He was a male in his sixties, and spoke about an incident at Fengtai District where a primary school for migrant workers’ children was demolished. He spoke of the children leaning against the wall, crying. At this point in the story, he too was moved and took out a wrinkled blue handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his eyes. When he was 18-years-old, he was a brigade cashier, and later became a professor and then an official. He said that his objective in doing all of these things was to give a little back to peasants. During the interview, he talked about the problem of land confiscation, and giving nominal compensation but not [market] prices to peasants. This distribution mechanism was unfair, and it did not only appear in land management law, but also in a 1982 constitutional amendment. While this was being investigated, my superior told me that if my interviewee spoke more pointedly, we could broadcast it. I asked why, since my interviewee was especially sincere. This person is Chen Xiwen, head of the Central Leading Office on Financial and Economic Affairs.

  Seven years ago, I interviewed an elderly person. I told him that he had already experienced so many setbacks in life, and asked what he depended on to retain the spirit of his youth. He told me that one year, he went to Hebei for an inspection. He did not take the rout arranged by local cadres. On the roadside, he discovered an old peasant sitting next to a coffin. He got out of the car to take a look. Because the old peasant was too poor and had no money for medical treatment, he [decided] to sell his own coffin. This old man then gave him 500 kuai to let him return home. He told me that the goal of his story was to tell me that there was no end to these issues in China, but that we shouldn’t focus on small losses, and rather continue to persevere. This person is Wen Jiabao, Premier of the People’s Republic of China.

  A country is built upon individuals; she is constructed and determined by them. It is only if a country has people who seek truth, who are capable of independent thinking, who can record the truth, who build but do not take advantage of the land, who protect their constitutional rights, who know the world is imperfect but who do not slacken or give up — it is only if a country has this kind of mind and spirit that we can say we are proud of our country. It is only if a country can respect this kind of mind and spirit that we can say that we believe tomorrow will be a better day.

  Read more about Chai Jing, on CDT.

  » Read more
  • October 19, 2009 11:24 PM

• Beijing Hires a Media Guru

  

  Asia Times profiles Dong Guanpeng, the CCP’s media policy consultant who recently gave a talk to foreign reporters at the Foreign Correspondents Club of China:

  Former journalist Dong Guanpeng, once a famous China Central Television (CCTV) anchor, was busy one afternoon last August answering questions from the foreign reporters in Beijing. He talked in a friendly and colloquial way. His attire was casual but elegant, and he made jokes and acted with grace. The qualities fit perfectly with his public relations role, but are rare in the organization he represents: the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

  Dong is a top adviser on the Chinese government’s communication and media policy. He also teaches at the State Council’s National School of Administration and is the director of Tsinghua University’s Global Journalism Institute. His work is part of CCP efforts to strength its public support using communication strategies of the 21st century.

  The Foreign Correspondents Club of China (FCCC) hosted Dong’s speech and it was an unusual occasion to listen to a first-hand description of the CCP’s communications strategy. The FCCC announced that Global Times editor Wang Wen – Global Times is a CCP newspaper published in English – was going to give a speech together with Dong. But at the very last moment, Wang withdrew his participation, officially because he was not aware that the conference was on the record.

  » Read more
  • October 9, 2009 10:01 AM

• Chinese Journalist Bloggers (Part 2)

  

  For his Friday 5, Adam Schokora of fifty 5 profiles prominent Chinese journalist bloggers who cover sports, arts & entertainment, business, society, as well as column writers. This is Part 2, which is also available in Chinese. Part 1, on Li Chengpeng (sports), Sha Minnong (stocks), Rose Luqiu (current affairs), Wang Xiaofeng (popular culture), and He Dong (entertainment) can be found here.

  An excerpt from his “Society” section:

  Chai Jing (柴静), a television journalist with CCTV’s News Investigation program, resumed blogging this year after a lengthy hiatus. Chai is conscious of the possibilities of her blog as an interactive platform, typically using videos of her programs as a prompt for readers to discuss the key issues at hand. She then responds to netizen questions. In two recent posts, she explained her view of the comments section and her moderation practices. Other posts address the practice of journalism in general, like a recent selection of excerpts from a Walter Cronkite book. Chai’s high profile, accentuated in the past month by her involvement in the exposé of shock therapy clinics for Internet addiction, means that she’s sometimes the target of nasty rumors. She recently had to fight back at online rumors that she had been arrested for accepting bribes in return for providing CCTV advertising spots to a Chongqing textile mill. Chai also occasionally contributes to Xiong Peiyun’s 21Pinglun (as in this anecdote about gentrification and cultural heritage). Wang Keqin (王克勤), a journalist with the China Economic Times (中国经济时报), has been called China’s chief anti-corruption journalist for exposing “the dark side of society.” Wang is unique in working up to a story to post on his blog, probably with the knowledge that the full version will not be published in print.

  » Read more
  • September 26, 2009 7:59 PM

• Editor Sacked for Report on Death at Internet Rehab Camp

  

  China Daily is reporting that an editor whose paper reported on the death of a teenager at an Internet addiction rehab clinic has been fired by local officials:

  Liu first broke the story about the beating death of 15-year-old Deng Senshan at a rehab camp in the local Nanguo Morning Post (NMP) on Aug 4, attracting nationwide media coverage.

  “I hope my former colleagues at NMP will continue their efforts to successfully run the newspaper, while trying to avoid risks,” he wrote.

  Deng was allegedly beaten to death by counselors at the Qihang Salvation Training Camp in Nanning, the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region on Aug 2.

  “All Senshan’s family members are very sad about the authorities’ decision to fire the editor, while wondering if the reason behind it was that NMP reported the truth of my son’s death openly and justly,” said Deng Fei, the boy’s father.

  » Read more
  • August 26, 2009 8:36 PM

• The Young Uighurs Were Full of Empathy and Faint Excitement: China Newsweek Reporting from Urumqi

  

  Danwei interviews two journalists for China Newsweek, Wang Gang and Wang Jing, who covered the violence in Urumqi for the magazine:

  Danwei: Have you been to Xinjiang before? Was there a contrast in ethnic relations between when you were there last and when you went this time?
  WG: I lived in Xinjiang for a time as a youngster. At that time my father was a soldier in the north of Xinjiang, in the Shihezi area, where the small town had nothing but the military and the Great Gobi, but now I hear that it has become biggest “garden” city in Xinjiang. Impressions from that time are not very many, but I feel that at the time Uighurs were amiable, the relationship between Uighurs and Han are not as tense as they are now.

  But now, in Urumqi, incompatibility between the Han and the Uyghur can be perceived everywhere. On the street, as a Han, it was easy for me to harvest unfriendly looks from the Uighurs. This kind of unfriendliness can be likened to the attitude that Uyghurs get in a big city like Beijing or Shanghai. In Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, people with even a little bit of experience will want to keep a little distance when seeing Uighurs. Because a lot of the time, these people are associated with thieves.

  This kind of attitude has existed in mainland cities for around ten years. Therefore in Xinjiang, where Uighurs gather together, a Han person appears like a monkey: this is normal. What I want to say is, for rational people, if we are talking about Uighurs discriminating against the Han, then it must have started with the Han isolating the Uighurs.

  » Read more
  • August 13, 2009 8:14 PM

• Quake Journalist Gets Award

  

  From RFA:

  A Chinese newspaper reporter has been named as a recipient of a U.S.-based international journalism award for his ground-breaking reports from the middle of last year’s devastating Sichuan earthquake.

  Southern Weekend journalist Cao Junwu was named this week as a joint recipient of the 2009 Knight International Journalism Award, the Washington-based International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), which makes the award, said in a statement.

  One of the first on the scene of the May 12 quake that killed 70,000 people, Cao traveled by helicopter and hiked along cliffs to reach the devastated area, which was cut off from the world by the destruction brought by the 8.0-magnitude tremor.

  » Read more
  • June 29, 2009 8:45 PM

• Should Journalists be Tried for Official Bribery in China?

  

  China Media Project looks at the trial of Fu Hua, a journalist in China, to question the role of employees of the official media and whether they should be held to the same legal standards as government employees:

  The scope and reach of the criminal offense of bribery (受贿罪) has never been clear in China. But the lines become even murkier when the charge is applied to one of the country’s most nebulous professions: journalism. Are Chinese journalists “government officials” or “state personnel” to whom stiffer penalties should apply? Or are they performing ordinary service jobs outside the purview of the Criminal Law on bribery involving state officials?

  These questions, which we saw in the Meng Huaihu (孟怀虎) case two years ago, have been replayed this month in the trial of Fu Hua (傅桦), a former reporter for Shanghai’s China Business News. They concern us here because they touch on more fundamental questions about press freedom, the role of journalism and journalists in China, and related issues such as the need (as some say) for a press law that might clear up ambiguities about journalists’ rights and obligations.

  » Read more
  • May 25, 2009 8:58 PM

• No. Korea Confirms Americans Were Detained

  

  Two American journalists working for Current TV, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, have been arrested in North Korea, apparently after mistakenly crossing the border while reporting from China on North Korean refugees. From ABC News:

  The reporting Ling and Lee were doing took them all the way to the border between China and North Korean.

  It is a difficult, even dangerous trip. They got help planning the journey from Reverend Chun Ki Won, a Christian missionary from South Korea whose organization smuggles Bibles into North Korea through China.

  [...] “It’s hard to determine the border, that which is North Korea or that which is China because it is just frozen river,” he said.

  So Chun said it’s possible that the reporters inadvertently stepped onto North Korean territory, and that was likely when North Korean soldiers arrested the two women, accusing them of entering the country illegally.

  Korea Times has more details:

  The Korea Central News Agency said its authorities detained two Americans on March 17 while they were “illegally intruding the territory of the DPRK by crossing the DPRK-China border,” Yonhap reported Saturday. DPRK is the official name for North Korea, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

  The report came as two female reporters from Current TV, an American Cable outlet, were reportedly taken by North Korean soldiers along the Tumen River on the Chinese border while filming the North Korean side early this week.

  U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “is engaged in this matter right now,” spokesman Robert Wood told reporters Friday. “There is a lot of diplomacy going on. There have been a number of contacts made.”

  See some of Ling’s previous reporting on China for Current TV, via CDT.

  » Read more
  • March 21, 2009 9:07 PM

• Journalist Jiang Weiping (姜维平) Receives Political Asylum in Canada

  

  Jiang Weiping is a Chinese journalist who spent five years in prison after writing a series of articles exposing corruption among high-level officials in Liaoning Province. Bo Xilai, then governor of Liaoning, and former Shenyang Vice Mayor Ma Xiangdong, were among those implicated in Jiang’s reporting for Hong Kong’s Qianshao Magazine (前哨杂志). Ma was later executed on corruption charges, while Bo Xilai was promoted to Minister of Commerce and became a member of the Politburo. Jiang was arrested and sentenced to nine years in prison, but was released early on medical parole. The Globe and Mail reports on his recent arrival in Canada, where his wife and daughter have been staying since soon after his arrest:

  It was only two weeks ago that Mr. Jiang’s patchwork path to freedom opened up. He was granted a Chinese passport. Soon after, a rare Canadian order was signed offering Mr. Jiang asylum, a diplomatic lifeline so long as he could reach the Canadian embassy in Beijing.

  And so it was that, first by boat and then by land, Mr. Jiang came from Dalain to the Chinese capital, a 10-hour trip. He travelled with only a small amount of luggage so as not to arouse suspicion among Chinese officials watching over him.

  He arrived yesterday afternoon, local time at the Canadian embassy. Canadian diplomats escorted him to the airport, waiting until he was on his way to Canada, where he can live for two years and apply for permanent residency.

  [...] Mr. Jiang was convicted after exposing corruption at the local and provincial levels in China’s industrial northeast. One of his stories revealed that the vice-mayor of Shenyang had gambled away $3-million in public funds. Another reported that the mayor of Daqing had used state money to buy apartments for his 29 mistresses.

  Mr. Jiang, who has a serious stomach ailment, was released from prison in January, 2006.

  You can read more about Jiang here, including examples of his journalism, and a poem he wrote for his daughter from prison.

  » Read more
  • February 5, 2009 1:41 PM

• Detentions Raise Old Questions about Protecting Journalists

  

  The China Media Project writes about domestic media reactions to the recent arrests of two journalists in China:

  Just one week after the arrest in Beijing of Li Min, a CCTV journalist accused of taking bribes while covering a story in Shanxi, Chinese media reported last week that Guan Jian, another Beijing journalist, had been ”taken away” by the police in early December while on a reporting stint to the same province.

  It is still not clear precisely what circumstances led to the arrest of Guan, a journalist from Network News (网络报). Accounts in Chinese media say the journalist went to Shanxi province to investigate a local real estate company.

  [...] After initial coverage by The Beijing News, scores of Chinese newspapers followed up on the story and many editorial pages questioned the tactics used by Hebei police to arrest Guan Jian.

  » Read more
  • December 23, 2008 11:13 PM

• Chinese Reporter Chasing Corruption Claims Disappears

  

  From Reuters:

  A Chinese newspaper reporter investigating a suspicious real estate deal who has not been seen since five men pushed him into a car two weeks ago has been accused of bribery, in the second such case this month.

  Guan Jian, reporter for the small Network News (Wangluo Bao) paper, was seized by police over bribery allegations, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing the Shanxi Provincial Public Security Department.

  The case appears to be the second in two weeks involving journalists who colleagues said were targeted for probing graft in a part of north China rich in both coal and corruption claims.

  See also this comment on the case from the Time China blog.

  » Read more
  • December 15, 2008 7:28 PM

CDT BOOKSHELF

China Digital Times is run by the Berkeley China Internet Project | Copyright © China Digital Times | Powered by WordPress.