Four years after the national security law upended Hong Kong’s media landscape, journalists in the city have reached a new equilibrium to move forward — but with more security legislation on the horizon, that could all be about to change again.
New regulations for independent content creators in China are a reminder of how political priorities in the oversight of digital platforms undermine regulatory action that might protect the public.
US House Speaker Pelosi has appeared in more than 70 articles in the CCP’s flagship newspaper so far in August — stratospheric by historical standards. The latest outpouring of rage from China appears across two pages today.
China’s government insists that its press licensing system ensures the professionalism of news coverage and safeguards reporting access for journalists. But press cards are ultimately designed with one key purpose in mind – ensuring news media stay in line.
While coverage of the Ukraine war in China’s official state media has emphasized a number of limited Party-state frames, other Chinese media have worked to tell more human and nuanced stories about the unfolding humanitarian crisis.
In a bid to advance Chinese government narratives more credibly overseas, state media have encouraged more “flexible and personalized” use of the individual accounts of their employees on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. When are social media accounts personal? And when are they being disingenuous about the state agendas they serve?
Reported by international media as being primarily about censorship concerns, the announcement last week by Microsoft’s LinkedIn that it would stop operations for its Chinese-language platform was reported inside China as being a simple “reconfiguration of strategy.”
Wang Qing (王磬) is the Europe correspondent for a commercial news outlet in Shanghai. Usually based in Brussels and Amsterdam, the COVID-19 pandemic has meant she has more recently spent months back home in China. There, she is perhaps better known for the podcast TheWeirdo (不合时宜), which she hosts together with two other (former) journalists, and for her presence on Weibo, where she mostly comments on social issues.
State outlets scurried to delete premature tributes after CGTN, China’s international English-language cable TV news service, spread fake news about the death of celebrated scientist Yuan Longping. The famed agronomist, 90, passed away several hours later.
The withdrawal of the UK broadcast license for the PRC’s state-run CGTN news channel has drawn fury in China. But isn’t the ruling that CGTN “is controlled by a body whose objects are wholly or mainly of a political nature” in line with Chinese policy on the media?
