From China Meida Project:
Cases like the beating death of reporter Lan Chengzhang earlier this year, and the controversy surrounding the Foxconn Case in August 2006, have underscored the growing problem of media ethics and press corruption in China. A crucial point often overlooked in coverage of this issue is the relationship between problems in the Chinese media and Party press controls. One of the lynchpin questions in the debate over ethical journalism in China is whether the professional environment for journalism can be improved without a radical rethink of the media’s role in Chinese society (which is also a fundamental question about political reform).
An editorial in today’s China Youth Daily, a newspaper published by the China Communist Youth League, touches on the institutional roots of poor media professionalism in China. The editorial, written by Chen Jibing (ÈôàÂ≠£ÂÜ∞), deputy editor of the Oriental Morning Post, one of Shanghai’s leading commercial newspapers, argues that the failure to establish “effective professional norms” in many sectors in China, including media, results from lack of “the necessary social ‘communities’ (ÂÖ±Âêå‰Ωì)”….[Full Text]
