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China news tagged with: Lan Chengzhang (20)

• Send Me Your Tired, Your Hungry Your Chinese Freelancers – David Bandurski

  

  From China Media Project:

  We’ve written extensively at CMP about the institutional causes of poor media professionalism in China ” from the Lan Chengzhang case to the more recent “cardboard bun” hoax. Anticipating CMP fellow Lu Ye’s talk tonight on media corruption, we return again to the question of the deeper causes of poor ethics, questions that have larger implications for journalism and free speech in China.

  Last month, in an article appearing at the online China Media Observation (CMO), scholars Ling Chen and Li Hongbin discussed the now-classic “cardboard bun” hoax, in which freelance TV reporter Zhai Beijia was jailed for producing a fake news report about unscrupulous vendors filling steamed buns with a mixture of meat and cardboard. [Full text]
  
  

  
  
  [Image: A photojournalist poses with workers for hire, via Xici Hutong]

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  • October 29, 2007 12:40 PM

• The Most Awesome Fake Reporter In History – ESWN

  

  Fake reporters are not new in China, but here is the most awesome fake reporter in history. From People’s net, translated by ESWN:
  
  

  Fake reporters are rampant in the city of Yuncheng, Shanxi province. On August 4, inspectors at the Tonghua toll booth on state highway 209 in Wanrong county, Yuncheng city found 19 fake reporters during a three-hour period. They took away more than 20 press cards that were forged. In less than a month’s time, the Yuncheng Cultural Publishing Bureau caught more than 30 fake reporters. [Full Text]

  Read QQ runs interactive feature page on the problem of “fake reporters” in China

  See also the Chinese original report
  
  

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  • September 5, 2007 12:50 PM

• China Mine Boss Jailed Over Death – BBC

  

  The BBC reports that Hou Zhenrun, the owner of the mine where newspaper employee Lan Chengzhang was beaten to death in January, was sentenced to life in prison. SIx other mine employees were also sentenced:

  Five men were given sentences of between five to 15 years in jail for carrying out the attack, while another man received a year sentence for harbouring the suspects.

  The court in Shanxi sentenced Hou to life in prison for causing the death of another by malicious injury.

  Mr Lan’s family were also awarded 300,000 yuan ($40,000) in compensation from the defendants. [Full text]

  » Read more
  • June 28, 2007 1:08 PM

• Serving Justice, or Saving Face – Angry Chinese Blogger

  

  From Angry Chinese Blogger blog:

  According to Xinhua, China’s state run media agency, seven men have been formally arraigned for trial over the murder of journalist Lan chenzhang, who was beaten to death on 10 January, 2007, while he was investigating illegal coal mines in Hunyuan country, Shanxi province.

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  • May 3, 2007 5:43 PM

• China Trial Over Reporter’s Death – BBC

  

  BBC and Xinhua report that seven people have been tried for the murder of Lan Chengzhang, who was killed at an illegal coal mine in Datong while employed by a local newspaper. From the BBC:

  The trial, which began on Sunday, is taking place at the Intermediate People’s Court in Linfen, Shanxi.

  Six man are charged with “intentionally causing physical hurt to others”, while a seventh is accused of harbouring the suspects, state-run Xinhua news agency said. [Full text]

  - Read the Xinhua report here.

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  • April 30, 2007 1:48 PM

• China: No more money-for-coverage – Joe McDonald

  

  Following the brutal murder of Lan Chengzhang in January, the Chinese government has announced new rules aimed at outlawing the common practice of paying for coverage. From AP:

  China’s government has ordered newspapers to stamp out the common practice of demanding money from people they cover, a state news agency said Tuesday, after the killing of a newspaper employee drew attention to the seamier side of the industry.

  Newspapers also must make sure that only properly accredited reporters are allowed to conduct newsgathering, the China News Service said, citing an order by the national news industry regulator. [Full text]

  » Read more
  • April 3, 2007 8:45 PM

• Six charged over China mine murder – agencies

  

  News agencies are reporting that six people have been charged with the murder of Lan Chengzhang, who was killed at an illegal mine when he worked for China Trade News newspaper:

  Police in China have charged six people over the death of a journalist who had been investigating a mining accident in the northern Shanxi province, an official has said.

  The six were arrested for beating up Lan Chengzhang, a reporter with Beijing-based China Trade News, and a colleague, although charges against the six were not specified.

  “Six people have been charged for the crime. This investigation is over,” a media relations official with the Datong city government, told AFP on Tuesday. [Full text]

  - See also a People’s Daily report on the murder investigation. Read more about the case, via CDT’s Biganzi.

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  • March 21, 2007 12:20 PM

• Charges due in China mine killing – BBC

  

  From the BBC News:

  

  Seven men will probably face charges after an investigation of the death of a journalist who was investigating a coal mine in Shanxi. Although some local officials say he was not an accredited journalist and may have been trying to extort money, there was still a public outcry among the reporters working in China where the media is tightly controlled. [Full text]

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  • March 20, 2007 12:05 PM

• Oriental Outlook on Lan Chengzhang, N/A Online

  

  
  Coverage of Lan Chengzhang’s killing will not die. Both China Newsweek and Oriental Outlook Weekly weigh in with cover features this week. Oriental Outlook opens from a particularly fresh and unflattering angle: the murderers’. It’s worth picking up a copy, because the piece is not available on the Web. (More on that below).

  The Shanghai-based magazine, published by Xinhua News Agency, gains access to a detention center in Datong to interview Hou Si, a.k.a. Hou Zhenrun. Hou’s the mining boss who perpetrated the attack on the China Trade News journalist and according to peasant witnesses, struck the fatal blow to Lan’s head with the handle of a pickaxe. Hou confirms to Oriental Outlook that in the three days prior to Lan’s arrival, he paid off reporters from five other publications who stopped by his unlicensed coal pit demanding hush money, to the tune of 16,000 RMB. Then Lan and colleague Chang Hanwen showed up and rang Hou by phone while he was out to lunch. That’s when Hou finally cracked, the magazine asserts. He rounded up seven drunk underlings and they drove over to confront Lan and Chang. Hou recounts:

  “I went to check out the situation. If they were real reporters and gave me good treatment, then I’d give them a little money. But if they were fake reporters, then I’d set them straight,” Hou Zhenrun told Oriental Outlook Weekly, describing the situation at the time.

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  • February 3, 2007 1:51 AM

• The System of News Bureaus Killed Lan Chengzhang? – Ma Jun

  

  ESWN has translated an article in yWeekend, which includes interviews with the two reporters who have done the most extensive investigations into the murder of Lan Chengzhang. In it, investigative journalist Wang Keqin says:

  The situation of news bureaus was caused by the “real problem” of the illegal coal mines. The two roads from the illegal coal mines and the news bureaus are obviously the cause of death of Lan Chengzhang, such that his beating death was inevitable. Thus, our whole report followed these two roads.

  On one hand, the illegal coal mine generate so much money that the mine bosss could afford to be indifferent to deaths. When a mine accident occurs, the boss will pay some money. The local government will try to cover up because it does not want any tarnish on its political accomplishments. On the other hand, the reporter has the “duty” to make “enough money” for the news bureau.

  When these two roads converge, Lan Chengzhang has no chance of survival. On one hand, there is the wealthy and ruthless mine boss. On the other hand, there is the continuous stream of real and fake reporters who want a piece of the pie. In the end, one side will lose control. The death of “Lan Chengzhang and others like him” must be said to be inevitable under this system. [Full text]

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  • February 1, 2007 6:06 PM

• China Media Seen as Corrupt, But Experts Blame Communist Controls for Skewing System – Christopher Bodeen

  

  Following the New York Times report yesterday, another look into corruption in the Chinese media:

  Media extortion is relatively common in China’s mining industry, which is rife with illegal practices, but elsewhere press corruption is more subtle.

  Reporters at news conferences are routinely offered envelopes of cash, ostensibly to cover travel costs but with the unspoken assumption they will write what the sponsor wishes to see.

  Businesses also buy advertising to ensure positive coverage, often at the behest of reporters who are required by their employers to meet revenue quotas. Commissions on such contracts can more than double a reporter’s pay, which is often as low as $150 a month. [Full text]

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  • January 31, 2007 3:27 PM

• Killing Puts Focus on Corruption in Chinese News Media – Howard W. French

  

  The New York Times covers the killing of Lan Chengzhang and corruption in the Chinese media:

  Attacks against journalists are not uncommon in China, even if deaths are rare. But in ways that few could have expected, the killing on Jan. 11 of this untested reporter for an obscure publication has become a watershed event, with reporters and editors around the country seeing in the murky contours of the case a cautionary tale for their booming but deeply troubled profession.

  That Mr. Lan’s death has become a national event was helped in no small measure by China’s leader, Hu Jintao, who in an unusual statement a few days afterward demanded that justice be done.

  But it also highlighted the culture of corruption that many journalists acknowledge pervades the industry, particularly the practice among some reporters of demanding money from subjects to avoid damaging articles. [Full text]

  - Read CDT’s extensive coverage of this case. See also a critique of this report from ESWN.

  » Read more
  • January 30, 2007 7:37 PM

• Dirty Newsrooms: Wang Keqin’s Missing Ending

  

  
  
  Not to be suppressed, acclaimed journalist Wang Keqin has blogged unprinted portions of his probe into the death of reporter Lan Chengzhang. With the author’s permission, CDT’s Mo Ming translates them below.

  Lan died at the hands of illegal coal mine bosses whom reports indicate he was trying to blackmail. Wang’s missing passages, now posted on his Sohu.com blog along with photos he shot in Shanxi, bring full circle his authoritative account of the controversial case. On January 24, the China Economic Times, Wang’s paper, published a version of it that ran over 13,000 characters long (translated in full on ESWN). But lopped off Wang’s piece were the two concluding sections, which illuminates how and why state-owned news media are tempted to sell out their watchdog services to their subjects. Critics may note that Wang focuses on the ethical and structural conflicts of interest that corrupt news journalists in China, leaving aside ever-implicit political stresses of censorship and the lack of legal protection. It’s important to realize, though, that Wang wrote the passages with the intention of publishing them in his paper. The China Economic Times, published by the Development Research Center of the State Council, nixed the passages anyway, primarily out of concern they would further tarnish fellow members of the industry, Wang explained in an earlier interview with Biganzi. No doubt, they will now.

  The other parts of the piece posted on Wang’s blog include a few dramatic details that were edited out of the paper. For instance:

  When Lan’s 4-year old little daughter Lu Lu saw the swelled and deformed head of her father, she remarked, “That’s not my father.” At Lan Chengzhang’s home, the reporter saw Lu Lu wearing her white mourning dress [pictured, as photographed by Wang]. At times she would cry along with her mother, while at other moments, she bounced and darted about.

  The final graph of the version that ran was also meant to finish on a more damning note:

  Friends in the area told the reporter that even some mine bosses possess press cards, and all are the press cards of central-level media.

  A translation of the missing sections follows:

  » Read more
  • January 27, 2007 9:28 PM

• Real Scoop On Fraud Journos: Q&A W/ Wang Keqin

  

  
  
  Such are the political and economic realities of China’s lethal coal mining business that all too often it doesn’t pay to play it clean. Sadly, the same can be said for journalism on the subject.

  Celebrated reporter Wang Keqin confirmed this for himself in the mining town of Datong in recent days. On Wednesday, the China Economic Times carried Wang’s dispatch about the death of Lan Chengzhang, the China Trade News reporter battered by mine bosses from whom he apparently tried to extort hush money. As noted in an earlier post, ESWN’s Roland Soong has translated the whole of Wang’s published account, and aptly terms it the most extensive thus far. Wang illuminates the oligarchic ways of “black mine” owners in Shanxi, who burn their mother lode on stretch Hummers and high-end condos in the Beijing’s Central Business District. He also fleshes out why it would seem untenable for the government to define a “real” journalist as someone who holds a journalist’s permit, given the majority are currently unaccredited – even at official provincial and central outlets. Finally, Wang runs down the cast of corrupt reporters in China today, including a little-noticed breed of snitches and consigliere who engage in “public relations crisis management”.

  But that’s still not whole the story, Wang asserted over the phone on Wednesday afternoon just after he got back to Beijing. His paper had to scratch some his juiciest findings, he said, particularly details about the business practices of papers in Datong. “Why was Lan Chengzhang extorting? Because his paper was doing so! Why was the paper doing so? Because that was their easiest way of making money! That’s the core of the problem: this dirty business.”

  “Originally I felt the report would be very incisive,” Wang lamented. “But now I feel it’s not so powerful.”

  The full story may yet be forthcoming. Meantime, herewith a 10-minute one-on-one with Wang Keqin:

  » Read more
  • January 25, 2007 2:14 AM

• Behind the case in which a “reporter” was beaten to death by the owner of illegal mine in Shanxi – Wang Keqin

  

  ESWN has translated a lengthy report by prominent investigative journalist Wang Keqin into the murder of reporter Lan Chengzhang. The original Chinese article is here:

  The beating death by pickaxe handles and steel rods of China Trade News’ Shanxi bureau worker Lan Chengzhang by the owner of an illegal coal mine and his gang is one of the hottest story in China this January.

  There are many versions of the story circulating around. Lan Chengzhang has left the world 13 days already. How was he beaten to death? What is the truth? Will the same kind of tragedy occur again?

  Our reporter went to Datong city (Shanxi) to conduct in-depth investigation in order to answer these questions. From the large number of interviews that our reporter conducted plus the information supplied by the Shanxi provincial and Datong city government, the most detailed description about the death of Lan Chengzhang is the following. [Full text]

  » Read more
  • January 24, 2007 1:42 PM

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