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China news tagged with: press freedom (249)

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“Why are More and More Journalists Being Beaten and Arrested?”
China Media Project translates an article in Southern People Weekly about the rise in violence against journalists in China:
If you Google the phrase “journalist beaten” (记者被打) right now, you’ll return 14 million results. Journalists who are charged with “protecting freedom of speech” are being beaten, arrested, and “sentenced for accepting bribes.” This has become a peculiar trait of China’s media ecology. In the most recent case, Fu Hua (傅桦), a reporter from First Financial Daily, was sentenced to three years in prison for accepting bribes.
The work of the journalist necessitates being on the scene, where the news is happening, and conveying facts to the general public. But when the basic safety of news reporters cannot be secured, or when the very safety of the person is threatened, will journalists dare reveal the truth and the facts? This being the case, won’t the crucial force of supervision by public opinion [or "watchdog journalism"] be weakened?
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- January 21, 2010 12:00 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.
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- January 13, 2010 1:51 PM
ChinaGeeks: Hecaitou on the Media
ChinaGeeks translates a portion of a blog post by Hecaitou which includes his thoughts about the media:
After so many years, we’ve learned that by reading the opposite of what the domestic media reports, one can get some of the truth. If there’s nothing readable, you can read the foreign press, as there’s probably more truth to be found there, although their conclusions may be wrong as many [reporters] write in accordance with their own thoughts and opinions. The world is like this; you need to find the solutions yourself and the truth is always a jigsaw puzzle [...]
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- December 5, 2009 9:35 PM
Veteran Chinese Reporter Speaks to Hong Kong Students
Investigative journalist Wang Keqin, whose life has been threatened numerous times for his reporting, talked to a group of Hong Kong journalism students. China Media Project reports:
In China, journalists like Wang Keqin face numerous difficulties — physical, commercial and political — as they try to conduct “watchdog journalism,” in Chinese called yulun jiandu, or “supervision by public opinion.” Journalists like Wang often risk more than their careers by pursuing tough stories that touch on the interests of powerful officials and businesspeople.
Years ago, after Wang wrote a damaging report about securities fraud in Gansu province, organized crime leaders put a huge bounty on his head. Local propaganda leaders were not happy either. Wang’s publication, Gansu Economic Daily, was briefly suspended, and Wang was told he would no longer be welcome there.
Fearing for his life and his career, Wang picked up and moved his family to Beijing.
Wang maintains a sense of humor about the warnings and finger-wagging he regularly receives from the Central Propaganda Department, the powerful CCP office that enforces “discipline” in China’s tightly controlled media. He views official displeasure as one of the clearest signs of the power of his work.
“I must often write self-criticisms of my work [for propaganda authorities] because it is politically incorrect,” Wang told students. “This, I think, is a badge of honor. For a journalist, it should be regarded as an honor. But of course propaganda officials see [what you've done] as shameful.”
Read more about Wang’s work and violence against journalists via CDT.
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- December 1, 2009 10:13 PM
A Few More Facts about China’s “Fake News” Purge
For China Media Project, Qian Gang reports on the purge of four newspapers for publishing allegedly “fake” news about the concentration of wealth in the hands of the children of China’s political elite:
The reports in question were branded as “false” on the basis of two sentences in particular.
The first was this one: “According to information in a joint research report by the Research Office of the State Council, the Research Office of the Central Party School, the Research Office of the Central Propaganda Department, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and other government offices, as of the end of March 2006 27,310 people [in China] had assets in excess of 50 million yuan, and 3,220 people had assets in excess of 100 million yuan. Among those with assets in excess of 100 million yuan, 2,932 were the sons and daughters of senior officials. They accounted for 91 percent of those with assets over 100 million, with assets totaling 2.04 trillion yuan.”
And the second: “A report by government authorities in China reveals that .4 percent of the population hold 70 percent of wealth, with concentration of wealth even higher than in the United States.”
The concentration of wealth in China has long been an issue that has concerned ordinary citizens. According to government authorities that have yet to be specified, these four media issued fake news reports. But what exactly is the truth here?
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- November 30, 2009 10:16 PM
Hu Shuli and the Future of Chinese Journalism
Both China Media Project and Evan Osnos of the New Yorker look at the departure of Hu Shuli from Caijing and its implications for journalism in China. From Qian Gang at CMP:
As could perhaps be expected, media outside China have leapt directly to speculation about the political factors behind Caijing’s troubles. Some have positioned this as yet another story about a media crackdown in China.
But things are not so simple.
Anyone who has observed the ups and downs of Chinese media over the past decade will recognize that Caijing’s troubles are very different in nature from explicit official moves in the past against such publications as Southern Weekend, Southern Metropolis Daily, and Freezing Point.
Based on what we know thus far, the Caijing affair arose primarily out of a row over ownership and interests between the editorial team led by Hu Shuli and the magazine’s bosses at the HK-listed SEEC Media, led by Wang Boming.
Beyond that, we are far from knowing the full story behind the upheaval at Caijing. But we can safely suppose – this is China, after all – that the story is a complicated knot of factors. It is about politics, yes. But it is also about profit, about dollars and cents. And further, it is about varying visions of how media reform in China should proceed.

And from Osnos, who wrote a lengthy profile of Hu for his magazine in July:
The young reporter, who covers mostly politics for a Chinese magazine, said that one way to gauge how Hu’s resignation is being interpreted by the broader community of Chinese journalists is to consider the fact that when she resigned, she did not announce it to a large group of employees, but only to her deputies. Yet, as word spread, scores of other employees resigned as well. She did not call for an exodus, it seems, but the fact of her departure was enough to trigger it. I can’t vouch for the details, but, if true, it’s a measure not only of Hu’s personal following, but also of how much Chinese journalists aspire to do the kind of work she inspired.
“How is the resignation being interpreted in the West?” the reporter asked me. I said the audience that pays attention to this kind of thing is finite, but interested, and that people are concerned that it will set back progress toward professionalism and internationalization in the Chinese media. He agreed that it probably would. I’ve known him since he got out of college and watched him take on increasingly creative and challenging pieces. As we talked, he surprised me: “Who knows? Maybe in five years we’ll look back on this and it will have been for the better,” he said of Hu’s departure. “She could end up establishing a new magazine with the same standards and energy” and none of the baggage from so many years of tension with the executives who once had to run interference for her with the government. I told him that I had not expected him to see reason for optimism. He shrugged. “What choice do I have?”
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- November 13, 2009 12:48 PM
Hu Shuli, who Led Independent Journalism in China Resigns
Peter Ford reports in the Christian Science Monitor:
Independent journalism in China, never a robust phenomenon, has taken a body blow with the resignation from the country’s top investigative business magazine of its pioneering editor.
Hu Shuli, editor and founder of the biweekly Caijing, stepped down Monday after a prolonged tussle with the magazine’s owners over financial and political differences.
“The course of advancing freedom of expression is not very straight … and there is not a very strong force behind it,” adds Gong Wenxiang, a journalism professor at Peking University. “I don’t think the environment for people like her [Ms. Hu] is very positive.”
“Caijing is one of a kind,” says Xiao Qiang, head of the China Internet Project at the University of California at Berkeley. “The fact Hu has to leave symbolizes the failure of that kind of experiment. The space she created has been closed down, and I don’t think anything like Caijing will come up soon.”
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- November 11, 2009 4:45 AM
On Journalist’s Day in China, Two Warning Bells
China Media Project looks as two recent developments that don’t bode well for Chinese journalists:
This year, Journalist’s Day has come and gone with little cause for celebration among journalists in China who harbor professional ideals. The holiday was marked, in fact, by two distinct warning bells.
The first warning bell came as recent troubles at Caijing magazine culminated in the resignation of editor-in-chief Hu Shuli (胡舒立).
Hu’s departure marked the end of Caijing as one of China’s most outspoken and professional media outlets, and as a key destination and training ground for top journalists. It also underscored the way the professional spirit in Chinese media is now being squeezed more tightly than ever between the priorities of government censorship on the one hand and the prerogative of commercial profit on the other.
The second warning bell came in the form of a speech by politburo member Li Changchun (李长春) to mark Journalist’s Day, in which the ideological chief laid stronger emphasis on media control and avoided all pretense of caring about the public’s “right to know.”
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- November 10, 2009 9:47 PM
Ran Yunfei (冉云飞): Where Will the Fear End? A Talk that Could Not Be Delivered
Blogger Ran Yunfei (冉云飞) posted the following on one of his blogs. CDT thanks the translator, who wishes to remain anonymous:
November 4, 2009

Ran Yunfei note: This is a talk I had planned to deliver at the invitation of some friends in at academic meeting at Hong Kong University. Since I was not able to go there to deliver it, I wrote it and gave it to them as a journal article. Actually when I take part in a colloquium or give a talk, I never write out an outline, much less write out a speech before I give it so that I could think it over carefully. I admire those who when they do things can get get every little detail right, and can write out their speech word for word before they give it. As for me, I feel that doing that detracts from the spontaneous nature of a speech and will make the audience feel like they are just listening to a recording, making it less interesting. These are my thoughts for sending along by means of the web, blogs etc., please let me have your comments.

November 4, 2009 6:40 at Chengdu
In my childhood I lived in the Dawulin mountain district. When I read Tao Yuanming’s “Peach Blossom Spring”, I thought the place described there was very much like my home area. The sky, the limestone caves, the underground river, the stalactites and the karst formations — they all felt like home. Naturally my home town of Xiyang County, Chongqing City and Changde County, Hunan Province as well as some other places argued constantly that they were the true origin of this imaginary “Peach Blossom Spring”. The two areas fought it out for top billing. Naturally commercial motives for this were far stronger than any desire to learn about the past to understand the present or any scientific motivation.
I myself didn’t care just where the “Peace Blossom Spring” originated from; what really interested me was taking part in the exploration of those limestone caves, row on those underground rivers, and climbing up towards the sky. I wanted to experience what Wang Anshi said in his “Traveling in Zen Mountain Chronicle” — “The greatest beauties and wonders of the world, extraordinary views, are often in dangerous and distant places, and so seldom visited. Therefore only the ambitious ever reach them.” One time a group of us children, large and small, lit a branch and squeezed into a big, dark, silent cave that had many passageways. Bats were flying around and we didn’t know just how far it went. The timid turned back, while the braver ones pressed forward. Later, even the bravest lost their confidence and felt they had to turn back. But we had lost our way. Everyone was reproachful of each other but didn’t say a word. Hopelessness and fear was spreading, our torment felt like how after having been bitten by a poisonous snake, the numbness spreading little by little across the entire body and then breathing becomes difficult. We felt that a great calamity had befallen us.
As time passed slowly by, we still couldn’t find our way to the exit. Everyone kept quiet, the air was stifling, and then a few of the children started to cry. The crying, catalyzed by that pitch black darkness and our helplessness, spread the feeling of helplessness and made us feel even more afraid. I and another of the more reckless children said, “Cry, cry, what good is crying going to do you?” We wanted to keep walking but every little while we took turns yelling out. Staying depressed and quiet and not yelling out our feelings will make it impossible for our families to find us. This certainly true, since a voice carries much further than the light from a small flame. Not long afterwards, one part of the group of people looking for us children came and found our group of tired and hungry children. Nearly all the children started to cry softly, enjoying their rescue and feeling that they had gotten their lives back.
Yes, you may have guessed it — I want to use this experience of misfortune from my childhood to explain to everyone why I have been writing a blog for a long time, and have been adding an entry to it every day.
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- November 7, 2009 8:04 PM
Victor Navasky Brings a Message of Free Speech to China
Victor Navasky was editor of The Nation from 1978 to 1995 before becoming publisher and now publisher emeritus of the magazine. In 2005, he won the George Polk Book Award for “A Matter of Opinion,” which has been described as, “a historically significant view of the role that public discourse plays in sustaining the democratic process in an age of mass media and corporate dominance.” He is currently Director of the Delacorte Center for Magazine Journalism at Columbia University and chairman of the Columbia Journalism Review, which now publishes a Chinese version.
Navasky took his first trip to China last year, and Josie Liu recently talked to him for CDT about his impressions of the country, CJR in Chinese, and why he thinks press freedom would be good for China.
Victor Navasky Brings a Message of Free Speech to China
Oct.13, 2009, Iowa City, IA

Speaking at the University of Iowa this week, Victor Navasky, publisher emeritus of The Nation, told nearly 100 journalism students about the first lesson in journalism he ever learned: Journalism should be a thorn in the side of authorities.
Navasky said the same thing last year to a group of Chinese journalism professors, students, and top media executives in Beijing. At the 2008 World Media Summit, where he gave a keynote speech, he advocated for free press and expression. The speech was simultaneously interpreted to nearly 200 audience members at the conference without interference. After his speech, however, the moderator commented on the message by saying, very politely, that different societies have different perspectives.
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- October 16, 2009 10:15 AM
Xinhua World Media Summit: Transparency and the Role of Media in China
Xinhua is hosting a world media summit in Beijing. From their own report:
Xinhua and eight other renowned media organizations including News Corporation, AP, Reuters, ITAR-TASS, Kyodo News, BBC, Turner Broadcasting System and Google Inc. will jointly launch the World Media Summit on Oct 8-10.
“Xinhua and the eight co-chairs have established a secretariat and reached wide consensus on the scale of the summit, theme and topics, organization, agenda setting, expenses, drafting and endorsement of the Joint Statement and the long-term mechanism of the summit,” said Li.
By Wednesday, 135 media organizations from 70 countries and regions have confirmed attendance to the summit, including 43 from Europe and North America, 21 from Asia, 17 from the Middle East, 17 from Africa, 20 from Eastern Europe and the realm of the former Soviet Union, 8 from Latin America, and 9 from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, said Li in an media interview on Wednesday.
David Schlesinger, Editor-in-Chief of Reuters, addresses the summit on Thursday. The following is from the text of his remarks:
The integration of China into global financial markets presents numerous challenges for financial media, on which the financial markets depend. But it also presents some challenges for Chinese policy makers to create the optimal conditions in which financial media can operate to respond efficiently to the needs of both Chinese and non-Chinese markets professionals and investors.
Let me respectfully suggest a few areas where China could take steps to facilitate the quality of financial information and reinforce the contribution of financial media:
* Greater discipline around the public release of official statistics:
Economic statistics are, of course, of critical relevance to financial markets. Still too frequently in China, rumours about statistics circulate for several days before their official release. Often the rumours later turn out to have been correct. Those “insiders” with access to the rumours enjoy unfair trading advantages over those who do not.
The correct policy response is not to punish the media for reporting the rumours, but instead to ensure that the processes and safeguards around the release of statistics are tightened.
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- October 7, 2009 5:53 PM
60th Anniversary Coverage: “Dancing with Shackles On”
In the run-up to the October 1st 60th anniversary of the founding of the PRC, China Media Project looks at media coverage of the event and compares it to coverage a decade ago:
Looking at the differences between coverage this year and in 1999, two changes become immediately obvious. The first is a dramatic increase in the level of commercialization in China’s media. The second is a rise in the strength and importance of internet media in China.
Chinese media face strict propaganda controls ahead of the 60th anniversary. They must follow the mandate of Hu Jintao’s “five goods” formula, avoiding historical and institutional negatives and focusing praise on the CCP and the socialist system, etcetera.
Nevertheless, the 60th anniversary is a great big event and a great big story, and Chinese media have to stay on top of it. So how do media, as Chinese journalists often say, “dance with their shackles on”?
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- September 17, 2009 4:25 PM
China City ‘To Open up to Media’
BBC reports that officials in Shenzhen are being required to be more accountable to the media:
From 1 December, officials could be sacked or reprimanded if they do not respond quickly to media requests.
Chinese media is tightly controlled by the state and independent investigative reporting is rare.
Shenzhen’s policy follows a relaxation of restrictions on foreign journalists after the Beijing Olympics.
“We are determined to change the random, passive and disorderly situation surrounding government press releases,” Su Huijun, the director of Shenzhen’s municipal press office, said.
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- September 17, 2009 9:10 AM
Wanted: Official News Critics to Help Control China’s Press
China Media Project writes:
Interested in trying your hand at the fine art of press censorship? The city of Zhuzhou, in China’s inland Hunan province, wants you. A notice posted on one of Zhuzhou’s official news sites yesterday called for applicants to its news commentary group, or xinwen yuepingzu (新闻阅评组), a group tasked with issuing post-facto criticisms citing violations of propaganda discipline which can often result in disciplinary action against specific media and/or journalists.
China’s central-level news commentary group, unofficially situated within the Central Propaganda Department, is a powerful group of 7-9 mostly retired propaganda officials with a potentially powerful influence over the press. It was the news commentary group that forced the brief shutdown in 2006 of the journal Freezing Point.
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- August 31, 2009 1:25 PM
Kunming Hails Breakthrough on Watchdog Journalism
The China Media Project analyzes a new initiative in Kunming that purports to fight corruption by protecting the work investigative journalists:
The latest ooh-ah move comes from the city of Kunming, which earlier this month issued a draft ordinance against official abuse of duty saying that leaders who “interfered with or obstructed legal acts of press supervision would be held accountable and even face legal liability.”
Chinese editorials have called the law an “ice breaking action.” The shift, some say, from “official documentation in support [of watchdog journalism] to actual laws in support [of watchdog journalism]” marks a fundamental breakthrough.
Others, fortunately, have been duly skeptical.
[...] From the standpoint of journalists, these ordinances have offered no real encouragement. The environment for Chinese investigative reporters, the standard bearers of “supervision by public opinion,” has gotten steadily worse since 2004, and local governments bear much of the blame.
What enthusiastic commentators on the Kunming ordinance fail to acknowledge is the fact that press control in China is not ultimately a matter of law. It is a matter of party discretion.
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- August 27, 2009 1:04 PM