In the Guardian, Jonathan Watts analyzes Chinese media coverage of recent events, including the Daping mining disaster, and the difficult position editors are in trying to report the news while also toeing the party line: “With China in the throes of a remarkable transition, it cannot be easy for any of the country’s newspaper editors to fulfil their contradictory roles as old-style communist propaganda organs and new-capitalist profit-hunters and public watchdogs. But you have to feel particular sympathy for the editor of the People’s Daily – the party mouthpiece and one-time font of public morality – who has to perform acts of intellectual and ethical contortionism to reconcile the nation’s past ideals, current reality and future aspirations…
“The often impressive coverage of social inequality and industrial disaster contrasts with a number of other recent stories that have been withheld, including the rising number of protests by laid-off or poorly paid workers, a riot last week in Chongqing, and a peace march in Taiwan by 2.5 million people. It reflects that two-steps forward, one-step backward process of media reform in China. Plotting a path through this shifting and treacherous media terrain is an immense challenge for editors. Making moral sense of the changes taking place is an even greater challenge. ” Read the full story here.
