The Party’s Propaganda Department has given orders to Chinese domestic media to stop reporting on the “nail house” story, a Chinese journalist who is currently in Chongqing wrote on his blog. Now some Chinese bloggers have taken up their “citizen journalist” role. Read the following post from China in Transition blog:
While the Chinese public is hungry for the latest update about the Chongqing nail house after the mainland media were largely squelched in their coverage, thanks to a young and restless blogger, people are now satisfied with on-site reporting published online.
Being perhaps the first non-journalist blogger in China to do original field reporting, Zola Zhou, a 26-year-old Hunan native, boarded a train on Monday and arrived in Chongqing early Wednesday “like a crazy rock,” on his own expense.
“News sensitivity and the desire to become famous overnight” brought him to Chongqing, he writes in his blog entry. By asking around, he found his way to the construction site where the nail house was still standing. [Full Text]
Read more details, including translation of Zola’s report on this post: Nation’s first citizen reporter? on Global Voices blog by John Kennedy.
