Courtesy of Asia Media, several new stories that highlight the challenges and opportunities facing the Chinese media:
The Taipei Times covers two widely-reported instances of government censorship: the crackdown on university BBS sites, and the banning of Serve the People, a novel “in which an army officer’s wife and her lover smash up images of Mao Zedong to take them to new heights of sexual ecstasy.” ESWN has translated a chapter of the novel here.
Meanwhile, the mainland press has strictly adhered to the party line in reporting on protests in Taiwan against the anti-secession law that was recently passed by the National People’s Congress, the South China Morning Post reports. One Xinhua headline, for example, read, “Taiwan locals criticize anti-mainland protest march.”
Other media are facing legal challenges, such as the China Pharmaceutical News, which is being sued by a blood collection center in Xingtai, Hebei Province, according to this report in the SCMP. The center claims the paper “tarnished its reputation” after reporting that it had been responsible for spreading HIV.
Again in SCMP, Mark O’Neill reports how Caijing, another publication that has been targeted in libel cases, scored the expose of China Construction Bank chairman Zhang Enzhao, who allegedly accepted a $1 million bribe while golfing in California. An English translation of the Caijing report is here.
