China Digital Times

China news tagged with: Olympics media (57)

• Foreign Websites Blocked Again

  

  Qiu Chen reports in AsiaWeek (亚洲周刊), via backchina.com, translated by CDT’s Lucy Lin:

  China blocks foreign websites again, and the already limited freedom of public opinion dissipates in a flash.

  Starting from December, some foreign websites that had been open to the public during the Olympics have been blocked again. Among these websites, Ming Pao News and Asiaweek cannot be visited in mainland China since December 2. Other websites that have been blocked include BBC Chinese, VOA Chinese, and the Hong Kong and Taiwan pages of Youtube. The limited freedom of information that had been allowed during the Olympics has now disappeared in an instant.

  According to reports, domestic Chinese Internet media have also been targeted. Besides Sina, all the columns and editorials on web portals will be rectified. The reason for this is to deal with possible outbreaks of economic, political, and public security issues in the country in 2009. The traditional media most likely cannot escape from this rectification. Furthermore, Jiang Yiping, who is in charge of the Southern Metropolis Daily, the “Most Daring Voice” in the Chinese media, allegedly encountered a “Personnel Adjustment” in the past few days, which also has to do with the current rectification.

  » Read more
  • December 15, 2008 12:34 AM

• China Milk Scandal Firm Asked For Cover-up Help

  

  From Reuters, via the Washington Post:

  China’s latest food safety problem, involving the addition of the industrial chemical melamine to milk to cheat in quality tests, has caused public outrage and put the spotlight back on deficiencies in industry oversight and weak regulatory bodies.

  China has already said the city government in Shijiazhuang, home to the Sanlu Group whose contaminated milk sparked a recall now spread worldwide, sat on a report from the company about the tainting for more than a month, while Beijing hosted the Olympic Games.

  “Please can the government increase control and coordination of the media, to create a good environment for the recall of the company’s problem products,” the People’s Daily cited the letter from Sanlu as saying.

  “This is to avoid whipping up the issue and creating a negative influence in society,” it added.

  Read also a Los Angeles Times editorial on this issue, and a previous CDT post about the first lawsuit brought against Sanlu by parents of a sick baby.

  » Read more
  • October 1, 2008 10:03 AM

• China’s Relaxed Reporting Rules Set to Expire

  

  The Foreign Ministry has acknowledged that the new reporting rules for foreign journalists, which were implemented with varying degrees of consistency, will expire now that the Games are over. Yet it was not clear what the new rules would entail. From AP:

  “I think when the time comes, we will tell everyone what the arrangement will be,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said. “But I want to reiterate to everyone that the spirit of opening up will continue.”

  The changes, which allowed reporters to interview Chinese citizens without government approval, were part of the country’s pledge to increase media freedom, which helped Beijing be picked as host of the 2008 Olympics.

  Jiang’s statement was the most explicit comment yet that Beijing intends to allow the current regulations to expire. A Chinese official had hinted last December that the new reporting rules could be extended.

  » Read more
  • September 9, 2008 2:05 PM

• Olympics Are Ratings Bonanza for Chinese TV

  

  David Barboza reports in the New York Times:

  Analysts say global corporations seeking a foothold in this potentially huge market have begun to notice CCTV, whose audience is vastly larger than every major television network in the United States and Europe combined.

  So, while NBC is celebrating record audiences of more than 30 million viewers in the United States, CCTV is smashing ratings records everywhere. The opening ceremony had an average audience of nearly half a billion people, and 842 million watched at least a minute of it, according to CSM Media Research, based here. More than 80 percent of Chinese households have tuned in to some broadcasts, guaranteeing the $2 billion company a huge pot of advertising gold.

  CCTV paid about $17 million for exclusive broadcast rights in China but could reap $394 million in Olympic advertising revenue, according to Group M, a media company that tracks television advertising revenue here. By comparison, NBC paid $894 million for broadcast rights in the United States and is expected to garner more than $1 billion in ad revenue.

  » Read more
  • August 21, 2008 3:40 PM

• Olympics No Fast Track to Media Freedom in China

  

  Radio Australia interviewed David Bandurski of the China Media Project about what impact, if any, the Olympics will have on press freedom in China for domestic reporters:

  David Bandurski, a media analyst and reporter for the Far Eastern Economic Review based in Hong Kong, says Chinese reporters at the Games aren’t getting anything like the relative freedom of Western reporters.

  Nor, he says, did they expect it.

  “Chinese reporters understood from the beginning, they understood seven years ago when these promises were made, that these promises were not about them at all,” Mr Bandurski told Radio Australia’s Connect Asia program.

  » Read more
  • August 20, 2008 8:53 PM

• Chinese Media: Behind the Headlines

  

  For the Newsweek blog, Jonathan Ansfield writes about the “free-talk” roundtable discussion he participated in with editors from Global Times about Olympics coverage:

  More questions came up. Why were the foreign media “politicizing” the Games? In response it was pointed out that they were politicizing our “politicizing”, along with just about everything else. What could be done to improve the coverage? Lots of advice there: more original reporting, less cherry-picking; more full translations, fewer slanted excerpts; fewer one-sided polemics, more balanced array of commentary. The editors were open to most of those suggestions. But original reporting of foreign affairs (at the whim of the Party propaganda department and Foreign Ministry) would be hard, they suggested. What storylines would we be following? For one, the U.S.-China medal race. They liked that idea.

  How did our feedback affect their Olympic coverage, if at all? No idea yet. It’s hard to tell. But our Chinese colleagues in the Newsweek bureau have been helping us keep up with Global Times. Here we’ve translated a smattering of excerpts printed in its pages over the past two weeks.

  » Read more
  • August 19, 2008 11:28 AM

• You Think NBC is Bad? You Haven’t Seen CCTV.

  

  On Slate, June Shih writes about CCTV’s non-stop Olympics coverage:

  Now that the games have actually started, a viewer can find live broadcasts of everything from archery to volleyball all day long. Television anchors are endlessly cuing up musical montages of Chinese gold medal performances in weightlifting, shooting, gymnastics, and diving. When not broadcasting events, Chinese programmers are filling the airwaves with features such as “Mothers Who Are Also Olympic Competitors” and “Kids Who Have Shaved the Olympics Logo Into Their Heads.” Enthusiastic coverage is of course not unique to the Chinese—I remember watching my share of slo-mo U.S. medalist montages set to Whitney Houston’s “One Moment in Time.” But what’s on television in China right now shows what happens when you combine tight state control with typically overwrought, patriotic sports coverage. CCTV is like NBC on steroids … and growth hormone, and EPO, and albuterol.

  » Read more
  • August 16, 2008 3:44 PM

• IOC: China Should Not Prevent Media from Reporting

  

  AP reports on a press conference by the IOC and the Beijing Organizing Committee:

  IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said journalists should not be prevented from doing their jobs, a day after John Ray of London-based ITV News said he was wrestled to the ground and briefly held by police who apparently mistook him for a protester.

  “The IOC does disapprove of any attempts to hinder a journalist who is going about doing his job seemingly within the rules and regulations,” Davies told a daily press briefing. “This, we hope, has been addressed. We don’t want to see this happening again.”

  The incident raised concerns that Beijing was not fulfilling its pledge to give foreign media unrestricted access to report on the games.

  Meanwhile, Tim Johnson recounts an exchange between Davies and journalist Alex Thompson of Channel Four News after she failed to answer his question: “Given that China got these games largely on making promises on human rights and press freedom, and given that the Chinese government has lied through its teeth about keeping those promises, is the IOC in any way embarrassed?”:

  Thompson: I don’t think anyone in this room, if I may speak, I may be stepping out of line, but I don’t think anybody thinks you’ve answered the question. Is the IOC embarrassed about the Chinese government not keeping those promises?

  Davies: We’re very pleased with how the organizers are putting on a good sporting event. That’s what this is. The IOC’s role and remit is to bring sport and the Olympic values to this country. That is what is happening, and the organizers have put on an operationally sound games for the athletes. This is an event, first and foremost, for the athletes, and the athletes are giving us extremely positive feedback about how they see these games being held for them.

  Thompson: Well, Giselle, we’re certainly not getting anywhere are we? Let’s try it once more time. Is the IOC embarrassed about the Chinese government’s not keeping promises on both press freedom and human rights? One more chance.

  Davies: Well, I think probably your colleagues in the room would like to have a chance at questions as well. I think I’ve answered your question.

  Read Richard Spencer of The Telegraph’s take on the press conference as well as a full transcript courtesy of the BOCOG. Read also about restrictions placed on domestic journalists covering the Games, via the CPJ blog. For a list of the specific restrictions, see this translation from The Age.

  » Read more
  • August 14, 2008 2:55 PM

• Uneasy Relations: China and the Foreign Press

  

  A British journalist was roughed up and detained as he was reporting on a pro-Tibet protest on the Olympic green. AP reports:

  On Wednesday, a British television journalist was detained by police as he tried to report on a pro-Tibet protest near the green, where protesters handcuffed themselves together and hung a “Free Tibet” banner from a bridge. John Ray of London-based ITV News was grabbed by police and put into a car. He was released after proving he was a journalist.

  International Olympic Committee spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau said the committee was checking into what happened. “The IOC’s position is clear: the media must be free to report on the Olympic Games,” she said in a statement.

  While Beijing vowed before the Olympics to give the foreign media unrestricted access to China during the games, Ray’s detention was just the latest in a string of recent confrontations between Chinese authorities and international journalists, adding to worries that Beijing has reverted to the tight controls it normally keeps over the press.

  Domestic media are also being prevented from reporting on sensitive stories related to the Games, according to this report from NDTV. Read also The propaganda bureau’s 21-point plan from The Age.

  » Read more
  • August 13, 2008 7:15 AM

• Tim Wu: Are the Media Being too Mean to China? (Updated)

  

  Written by Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School, from Slate:

  To say Beijing is eager to welcome foreign guests to the Olympics may be the understatement of the century. The new airport terminal features a welcome robot, there are “welcome booths” on just about every downtown street, the names of the Olympic mascots spell “Welcome to Beijing” in Chinese. If you’re not careful, you may be walking down a normal street only to find yourself surrounded by eager volunteers clad in blue shirts who point out everything you ever wanted to know about Beijing and plenty more you didn’t. In the Olympic Village, where the athletes live, friends say that the enthusiasm and attentiveness of the volunteers borders on harassment.

  The enthusiasm is understandable. Everyone keeps talking about the “100-year dream,” and in a sense, Beijing has been waiting to host this—its international coming-out—since 1842 or so. That’s the year China lost the Opium War and started a 160-year-long search for respect. Much to the country’s chagrin, it still isn’t getting any.

  The Western media have arrived en masse to China’s ball: lots of senior journalists, in sloppy dress, interested either in their own athletes or in writing their own big “China piece.” (Foreign guests are here, too, but fewer than Beijing had hoped for, thanks in part to self-defeating visa policies.) Not surprisingly, the stories written about China by foreign journalists are rarely on topics China might have hoped for.

  Update: An article in Harper’s gives another perspective, that NBC coverage of China is in fact too friendly especially with the use of a hired commentator who works with Henry Kissinger:

  When Lauer asked Ramo if the Games would change China, he replied, “I think China is changed irrevocably after these 17 days. It is a full aware part of the international community and they know that their behavior in that community is going to have to be different than in the past.”

  So who is Ramo? According to a recent piece in the Albuquerque Journal, he “works as a managing director and partner at the Beijing office of Kissinger Associates.” Which explains a lot.

  Shouldn’t NBC identify Ramo as an employee of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who is one of the Americans closest to the Chinese leadership and whose business involves opening doors for Western companies seeking to do business in China?

  » Read more
  • August 12, 2008 8:35 AM

• China’s Media Censored Over Stabbing

  

  The Age reports on efforts to censor domestic reporters covering the stabbing of an American tourist in Beijing:

  Several Chinese reporters had their notebooks and at least one tape recorder confiscated after a news conference held by the US men’s volleyball team.

  The players had been discussing the impact of the murder on them. The victim was the father-in-law of team coach Hugh McCutcheon and the father of former national team member Elisabeth McCutcheon.

  Sources have told The Age the confiscation caused disquiet at the venue. It was uncertain if the items were returned.

  » Read more
  • August 11, 2008 6:22 PM

• Liang Wendao: Reporters Vs. Policemen

  

  Liang Wendao, a well-known host of Phoenix TV, a Chinese broadcasting company based in Hong Kong, commented on the recent clash between members of the press and police during Olympics ticket sales on his blog. Translated by CDT’s Linjun Fan.

  Many Chinese are confused over why people overseas often pick on our faults when the nation is becoming strong, its economy is increasingly prosperous, and people’s lives are being improved day by day. Why do the overseas media vilify us? Perhaps we could look at the problem this way: it is caused by the divergence of two images of China: One is a rising superpower, which is in the collective consciousness of the Chinese people; the other is a dinosaur with tons of problems, which is in the minds of people overseas.

  We often say that when foreigners get to know China better, their prejudices would disappear. We all think that frequent contact and adequate information would help to reduce the divergence between the
  two different perceptions. If this assumption stands, the Chinese people should also know better about what is happening to ourselves, so we could have a reasonable image of the country and won’t feel too good about ourselves.

  A number of mainland newspapers published a tabloid news story on July 26, which said that a reporter from the South China Morning Post disobeyed Beijing police and even injured a policeman by kicking him. If they read only this news story on the incident, Chinese readers might think that overseas media were creating problems in China again, and that the Hong Kong reporters were so aggressive as to make trouble out of nothing at a celebratory occasion.

  However, the media in Hong Kong told a completely different story about this incident. They published pictures showing that a huge crowd of Beijing residents who had been queuing for days to buy Olympic tickets went out of control. A single long line broke into three ones. The crowd as well as the police at the spot were restless from the scorching heat.

  Various Hong Kong reporters took pictures of the scene with their cameras. The police tried to stop them. They intended to either confiscate their videotapes or detain them. They even beat the reporters.

  We all know that the State Council had put forth a new regulation long ago to give more freedom to overseas press…We all applauded this regulation as a sign of China’s opening up, and its first step towards hosting a civilized Olympic Games. However, as we saw clearly on TV, the policemen in China’s capital kept questioning the Hong Kong reporters over whether they had permission. They did not to listen to the reporters who responded to them with the State Council regulation. The police also tried to block the photographers’ lenses with their hands. The kicking of a policeman by a South China Morning Post reporter took place at this chaotic moment.

  Therefore, through the various indignant coverage on the incident by Hong Kong media, the image of Chinese bad at queuing and of Chinese police disrespecting press freedom was spread out to the world once again. But what people in China read about in their papers was that a Hong Kong reporter attacked a Beijing policeman for no good reason. The divergence of the two images gets widened with one such small incident after another.

  Can the Beijing Olympics help to present the new image of contemporary China to the world? Perhaps. Take the Beijing police who rudely treated Hong Kong reporters as an example. I don’t deny that reporters could be blamed for going over a media zone designated by the police. However, was it necessary for the police to dispel the reporters even after they quit to the media zone? We might regard it as a new image of China that is worth celebrating — at least the police had realized that it was not a good image to be seen by the world that people in China didn’t wait in queues to buy tickets. The fact that the police asked reporters to stop taking pictures and forced them to hand over their videotapes showed that they were aware of the power of media supervision. How would the police have been afraid of reporters if we were still in the era when all media were the mouthpiece of the government?

  …

  Hong Kong reporters intuitively responded to the questioning of the police with the new State Council regulation on the rights of overseas press. They forgot how loyal these policemen were. To the policemen, the orders from above were everything. If they receive a new order (let’s suppose that the order is to maintain social order at any cost), they could ignore all previous laws and regulations to carry it out. In China, the lines between laws, regulations, and orders are blurred. You could regard all of them as orders of different types. A new order always overrides all previous orders, no matter if it is an administrative regulation, a national policy, or a codified body of law.

  The police who beat the the reporters might have received orders to treat reporters politely. They might also know that overseas media need not get permission from the government to conduct interviews, and that it is important for them to fulfill their duties in a civilized way. However, since they’ve got the latest and the highest order, they would do their utmost to carry it out and to maintain
  peace and order during the Olympics.

  What was most interesting during the incident was what a Beijing resident said in an interview with a Hong Kong reporter at the chaotic scene, “We are in good order. There is no problem. Please don’t ask me about it any more.” We could see clearly from recorded pictures that the scene in the background was chaotic and people were pushing each other at the time he spoke. Yes, we were in peace, in harmony and in good order, although the crowd was a mess and a policeman pinched a
  reporter on the neck.

  (For more on this story, see these posts from ESWN.)

  » Read more
  • August 5, 2008 2:52 PM

• China Must Not Let Its Brief Democratic Light Go Out

  

  From the Independent:

  There was something rather inappropriate about the timing of yesterday’s solar eclipse, some of the best views of which could be seen in China. There was darkness over the territory of the 2008 Olympic host just as the government in Beijing was relaxing its policy of censoring the internet and allowing a shaft of light into this still largely closed society. International journalists in the Chinese capital turned on their computers and found themselves able to access previously blocked websites run by, among others, Amnesty International and the BBC.

  Actually, we should not get carried away by this move from the Chinese government. All the signs are that this relaxation will be temporary, probably for the duration of the Games. It is patchy too. Only parts of Beijing and a few cities seem to have been granted wider internet access. And there is no indication that the regime’s assiduous corps of web censors is to be called off.

  Below are news on this topic yesterday:

  From Washington Post:

  The International Olympic Committee and the Chinese government acknowledged Wednesday that reporters covering the Olympics will be blocked from accessing Internet sites that Chinese authorities consider politically sensitive.

  The avowed censorship, although standard procedure for China’s millions of Internet users, contradicted pledges made earlier by IOC and Chinese officials that the estimated 20,000 journalists and technicians due in Beijing next week for the Olympic Games would have unfettered Web access. It was the latest in a series of steps taken by Chinese authorities reneging on promises they made seven years ago, when Beijing was granted the Games, to allow free reporting during the Olympics.

  In response, the Paris-based advocacy group Reporters Without Borders issued a guide on how to use proxy servers to get around China’s censorship. The Web-based guide also advised reporters covering the Games, which begin Aug. 8, that their telephone calls and e-mails are liable to be monitored by Chinese security agencies.

  Read also Advice for foreign journalists covering human rights situation during Beijing Games by Reporters Without Borders:

  1. Install programmes on your computer that will help you to circumvent firewalls and protect your communications. Before going to China, you should install Tor (www.torproject.org/index.html.en), Psiphon (http://psiphon.civisec.org/) or Proxify (https://proxify.com/). The international version of Skype is recommended, rather than the one available in China, which is not secure. It is also advisable to encrypt emails with PGP (http://www.pgpi.org). More information is available in the Reporters Without Borders Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents: http://www.rsf.org./article.php3?id_article=26187

  2. Protect your computer against Trojan viruses and ensure that it is password-protected. Do not leave your equipment and contact lists in an accessible condition in a hotel room.

  3. When making phone calls or sending emails, bear in mind that there is no guarantee of confidentiality. Use several SIM cards, especially when contacting “sensitive” people.

  4. Before leaving to China, get the contact details of Chinese human rights activists, lawyers and relatives of prisoners of conscience. Reporters Without Borders can provide journalists with lists of people willing to talk to the foreign press.

  5. Do not use the services of Chinese companies that offer interpreters and guides. These companies are linked to the government and their employees could easily try to prevent you from investigating sensitive issues or could endanger your sources. Try to use the services of Chinese interpreters and fixers who are freelancers, or foreign journalists who speak Chinese.

  6. Take the following with you when you go out reporting: the Chinese-language version of the rules for foreign journalists, your embassy’s contact details, photocopies of your ID documents and press accreditation, and the phone numbers of BOCOG and the Chinese foreign ministry.

  7. Monitor the following independent Chinese-language sources of news about China: the BBC in Chinese (http://news.bbc.co.uk/chinese), Radio Free Asia in Chinese (www.rfa.org/mandarin) and Boxun (www.boxun.com).

  8. Any violation of your freedom of movement and right to interview should be reported to your embassy, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China (www.fccchina.org) and Reporters Without Borders. It should also be reported to BOCOG and the IOC. In the event of any conflict with the authorities, use the legal hotline set up by Chinese lawyer Li Baiguang (139 108 02 896 or olympic@lawyer.com).

  9. Read the Reporters’ Guide to China that has been written by the Foreign Correspondents Club of China.

  Update 1: According to Australia’s ABC News, individual members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) are angered by the censorship and questioning China’s right to hold the Games. See also “Beijing’s Forgotten Promises” from cecc.gov.

  Update 2 (2008.08.01 13:40 Beijing Time): It now appears the IOC has told Reuters will enforce Internet freedom for Western journalists during the Olympics after all. “The issue has been solved,” [Gunilla] Lindberg [IOC vice-president] said. “The IOC Coordination Commission and BOCOG met last night and agreed. Internet use will be just like in any Olympics.”

  Also from Xinhua: Chinese gov’t won’t allow spread of illegal information online.

  » Read more
  • July 30, 2008 8:17 PM

• Beijing Olympics Advice From Ex-CNN Journalist

  

  From Thomas Crampton’s blog:

  Journalists coming to cover the Beijing Olympics must balance convenience and paranoia when it comes to their digital security, according to Rebecca MacKinnon, former Beijing Bureau Chief of CNN who now teaches digital journalism at Hong Kong University.

  In this video Rebecca offers tips on how to:

  1- Get behind the Great Firewall
  The Beijing government blocks access to many websites (Wikipedia, some publications, many blogging sites).

  To reach these sites, reporters will need to set up a VPN such as WiTopia or use a browser enabled with TOR.

  That said, the government seems to be unblocking much of the Internet and may remove most blocks at international hotels and press centers during the games.

  » Read more
  • July 29, 2008 7:09 AM

• Off Camera: Broadcasters Fighting With Chinese

  

  From AP：

  The Beijing Olympics may not look much different from previous games on TV.

  Behind the studio sets, however, world broadcasters have been squaring off for months with Chinese officials over censorship. Among the issues: what they’ll be allowed to get on video, where they can work and whether they can broadcast live. They’ve faced red tape, intimidation and restrictions on coverage, which might make it difficult to cover unexpected events away from the venues.

  Broadcast officials recount months of delays applying for permits amid changing rules. They’ve been questioned about coverage plans by everyone from policemen to local bureaucrats. Several broadcasters spoke of ordeals just to rent office space, and one said a Chinese homeowner made an offer to locate a satellite dish on his property.

  Read also Networks Fight Shorter Olympic Leash by Brian Stelter.

  » Read more
  • July 24, 2008 12:41 AM

CDT BOOKSHELF

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