Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom - World Press ...

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Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom 30 to a delayed and short series of Xinhua dispatches, the only version allowed to be carried by all newspapers. Political restrictions have an impact on journalistic genres and styles. Some types of articles are totally absent from the Chinese press. A portrait of a Chinese political leader is something totally unheard of. Official are generally not quoted on controversial topics. A newspaper will almost never publish interviews, and if it does, it will be almost exclusively by scholars or artists. Despite all this, Chinese journalists are not shy of using the whole range of journalistic techniques, and say things without being targeted. In the case of the Burmese demonstrations, some newspapers dutifully reproduced nothing but Xinhua dispatches, but gave as much information as possible in their headlines. In the past decade, a very ambivalent situation has prevailed in the Chinese press. On the one hand, journalists have been watched, sanctioned and imprisoned. Information has been censored, newspapers and web sites closed down. On the other hand, the Chinese press has exerted a big push for reform. Many reports appeared on issues long deemed to be sensitive. Nothing directly political ever gets published. But many articles about issues regarding people's livelihood which have far-reaching political implications do get published, especially when the authorities are willing to address those issues. A whole range of financial and economic newspapers now exist, and their coverage has regularly expanded to the social aspects of a growing economy. Articles on education, the health system, employment policies, transport, the environment, etc., can indeed be found in the most serious newspapers. I'll give a few examples • In 2004, the Canton weekly Nanfang Zhoumo revealed the emergence of a labor shortage in Guangdong province. By examining that issue, this leading magazine was able to underline the need for better salaries and working conditions for migrant workers. • In 2006, the news weekly Zhongguo Xinwen Zhoukan revealed that in the name of economic interest, some polluting industries were being moved from rich coastal provinces to poorer inland provinces willing to accept nuisances. • In 2007, the financial magazine Caijing raised the issue of the aging of the population and the fact that some experts were questioning the one-child policy Coverage of these issues may be incomplete or debateable, but its very existence indicates the scale of social issues, which would not have been covered at all not long ago. It may seem paradoxical today, but in recent years, the Chinese press has actually given some space to scholarly opinions on a few crucial issues, including human rights. In 2004, in the Xinhua magazine Huanqiu, a few judicial officials and legal scholars started voicing criticisms about the scale of the application of the death penalty, and called for its drastic reduction. The press revealed a few stories about executed convicts who were later proven innocent. Shortly afterwards, the government decided to refer all death
Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom 31 penalty appeals to the Supreme Court. Although the number of executions is a state secret, there are reasons to believe that the number did drop slightly in 2007. In late 2007, in the weekly Nanfang Zhoumo, a number of legal experts and intellectuals jointly released an appeal to eliminate laojiao, the system of reeducation through labor. This system of administrative detention has been denounced for decades by international human rights organizations. It remains to be seen whether the government is willing to move towards its elimination. In both cases, the press has given space to debates taking place in the upper levels of power and ran stories about them in real time. The coverage of general news, scandals and tragedies has greatly developed. In the last decade, the Chinese press seems to have taken on the role of orchestrating public outcries against bad practices at various levels of the government. Scandals of all sorts have been denounced, such as corruption cases, modern slavery and ecological disasters. Journalists have clearly expressed the view that excessive control of the press is detrimental to good governance. In February 2008, the bad weather in the south during the spring festival holiday season provided the occasion to run editorials raising the issue of the State's responsibility for the lack of disaster relief response. The time is not so far distant when no disaster ever appeared in a Chinese newspaper. In the past few years, two key events in China have been extensively covered by the press, making it apparent even to the Chinese government that its control of the press could actually be detrimental to the smooth handling of crises. The first event was the SARS health crisis. In early 2003, newspapers in the south of China reported a mysterious illness, that had been creating a panic since the previous November. Health authorities then resorted to an old habit and orchestrated a news blackout. But in March, the illness spread to Hong Kong, and questions arose about SARS from the rest of the world. A military doctor, Jiang Yanyong, revealed the scale of the epidemic to a German magazine Der Spiegel. The government then stopped denying the crisis and started tackling the problem with a little more openness and efficiency. Those events were turning points for the press. The words “transparency,” “responsibility” and “public opinion” began appearing in Chinese editorials. When Chinese authorities seek to cover up information, editorials now often recall the SARS crisis to warn of the consequences of news blackouts. In May 2003, Sun Zhigang, a young designer with no residence permit in Canton, was arrested by the police for being an illegal migrant. He was taken to a repatriation center for migrants, where he was beaten to death. The story was revealed by the local newspaper Nanfang Dushi Bao, and was then quickly taken up by the entire Chinese press. A public outcry followed, and legal scholars stepped in to demand the abolition of the repatriation centers for migrants. They were abolished in the following months.
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