Chinese President Hu Jintao’s speech to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party on July 1 this year was mostly self-congratulatory, a grocery list of everything the Party professes to have done right. But Hu did pause for a stern moment in which he enumerated what he called the “four dangers”: loss of vitality (精神懈怠), insufficient capacity (能力不足), alienation from the people (脱离群众) and rampant corruption (消极腐败). These internal challenges, said Hu, are now “more strenuous and pressing than at any point in the past.”
The third of these challenges, alienation from the public, can be glimpsed daily on China’s internet, as users fume over myriad injustices and the government’s often cruel and cockeyed way of dealing with them (like burying train cars within 24 hours of a major railway disaster). The credibility of China’s institutions is often questioned so routinely that leaders need only issue a denial of an accusation for internet users to be certain of its truth.
But it’s number four on Hu Jintao’s list, corruption, that arguably presents the most immediate threat to the Party’s standing, and to social and political stability in China. Corruption, particularly at the local level — but surely at every level — is behind most of the social ills and animosities that boil over daily in China into “sudden-breaking incidents” officials do their utmost to crisis-manage.
The emphasis on “channeling public opinion” so prevalent in media policy these last few years — what we have at CMP termed “Control 2.0” — essentially comes down to finding more effective ways of spinning these public opinion crises, managing dangerous stories in the era of real-time interactive information.
But as Zhu Huaxin (祝华新) of the People’s Daily Online Public Opinion Monitoring Center wrote recently, these public opinion crises are backgrounded by very real “social sicknesses” and “resolving real [underlying] issues is the first order of business, while channeling public opinion on the internet (网上舆论引导) must be secondary.”
In recent weeks, intensifying in recent days, we have another clear example of just how volatile the situation can be in local areas across the country, where citizen’s interests are often threatened by corrupt or unresponsive local leaders not subjected to real checks on their power. And this example also shows us how leaders are trying to grapple with the fallout from this corruption, though not unfortunately the root causes.
The story is about how thousands of residents in Wukan village outside the city of Shanwei in Guangdong province have organized protests against local officials they allege sold off village land in a dirty development deal.
Here is a visual illustration of corruption as the core originating grievance, photos from Wukan shared on social media in which the banner at the top reads: “Does the land belong to corrupt officials?”

The situation escalated over the weekend as villagers learned that Xue Jinbo (薛锦波), a village representative, had died while in police custody. Police said Xue’s death was due to a heart attack, but family members insist he was badly beaten.
For the fuller story, we refer you to Malcolm Moore’s reporting at The Telegraph [Today’s story is here]. But this photo by Moore gives you a good sense of what’s happening in Wukan.

So we have a case here of alleged official corruption — the “fourth danger,” if you will — that has escalated into a crisis situation over (possibly) another grave issue of injustice as leaders in Guangdong have applied heavy-fisted tactics to deal with it. So far, the government response has been to close Wukan off both in terms of security (“stability preservation”) and propaganda policy (“public opinion channeling”).
Finally late yesterday, just minutes before midnight and after a uniform blackout in Chinese media through the day, we had two news stories on Wukan from China News Service, China’s number-two official newswire. The first reported that Shanwei city authorities revealed at a press conference on the Wukan incident (乌坎事件) yesterday that “preliminary investigations have ruled out external force as the cause of death” in Xue’s case. The news story also said that the city’s medical expert shared photos of Xue’s body during the press conference.
The second China News Service report, also based on the press conference, said that “various village officials” from Wukan had been detained for discipline violations.
Curiously, though, there seems to be no coverage of the press conference from other media. That suggests that these stories can be taken as an illustration of “public opinion channeling” tactics at work. The authorities, in other words, are selectively releasing partial information from an official perspective in an attempt to frame and re-direct public attention. Message 1: Xue Jinbo was not killed by police, an assertion that removes the immediate reason for escalated tensions in Wukan. Message 2: local Wukan leaders have been detained for suspected discipline problems, an action that (leaders undoubtedly hope) will remove the initial underlying cause of tensions, alleged dirty land deals.
A search in Baidu News for “Wukan incident” comes up with a number of other news reports, like this one, making use of the China News Service release. But other suggested links for coverage after December 9 are not available, most notably a report on 21cn.com provocatively headlined “Wukan: The Awakening of a Village” (乌坎:一个村庄的觉醒), which now returns only a “page cannot be found” message:

Stranger still, another link on the Baidu News search results is an article posted yesterday at Phoenix Online with the headline: “Four Villagers from Wukan in Guangdong’s Lufeng City are Locked Up in Three Locations, Allowed to Meet with Relatives” ( 广东陆丰乌坎4村民被分3处关押 获准与亲人见面). The video embedded with the Phoenix Online article says it all, I think, and I encourage readers to look at it carefully. Nanfang Daily, the official mouthpiece of Guangdong Party leaders, is given as the source of the video.

In the video, a policeman brings a prisoner (we are to suppose he is one of the Wukan villagers detained) outside to where several three chairs sit. As the prisoner walks in wearing his orange vest, two people (we are to suppose these are two of the prisoner’s relatives) sit in two of the chairs. The time on the video says, “December 13, 2011, 15:00.” There is a brief, awkward embrace of sorts. Then, before anything meaningful whatsoever is spoken, the video cuts to a scene in which two different people (again, we are to suppose these are relatives of the prisoner) walk very casually toward the two empty chairs across from the prisoner, who is already seated. There is a cut once again, and then the two women are already seated. One says, “So, have they beaten you at all?” To which the prisoner responds, “No, they haven’t beaten me.” Then comes the kicker from the prisoner’s relative: “Thanks to the government!”
The time on the video still reads: “December 13, 2011, 15:00.”
As a “channeling” mechanism, of course, this video establishes a third assertion, that the village leaders detained in the Wukan incident have not been mistreated by the authorities.
Images were also posted on Chinese social media yesterday, but control of this story has been very robust. When I posted a Chinese-language summary of Moore’s story and the above photo to Sina Weibo yesterday morning, it was quarantined in under a minute. That is to say, the post was not deleted, but it was hidden from all Sina Weibo users but myself — without any notice for Sina. If I hadn’t been on my toes and ready to watch the post with the help of colleagues I might have assumed simply that no-one was interested in commenting or re-posting the item.
All searches for “Wukan” and “Shanwei” on Sina Weibo yield messages that read: “According to relevant laws and regulations, search results for ‘Wukan’ can not be shown.” Estimates put Shanwei’s population at around 700,000 — so imagine a major internet platform in the United States blocking searches for “Detroit.”
Clearly Wukan is an object lesson in the dangers of runaway corruption at the local level in China. But it is also, unfortunately, shaping up as a test case in how the government is experimenting with new strategies to shape news coverage on sensitive incidents and issues.
Let’s keep watching.
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UPDATE:
(For the benefit of commenter Itlee and all, we provide three screenshots of Sina Weibo searches conducted at 5:38pm Hong Kong, December 15, 2011]

Since the 2009 global financial crisis, the outlook for the United States and European economies has not appreciably improved, as Europe continues to struggle with its debt crisis and the U.S. experiences high levels of unemployment. In an October report on the outlook for 2012, Goldman Sachs wrote: “It’s been a disappointing economic recovery since the end of the financial crisis in mid-2009, with US gross domestic product (GDP) growing by only about 2 percent in real terms. The main result of this disappointing growth has been the persistently high number of unemployed in the US. The current rate of GDP growth is insufficient to dent the huge pool of long-term unemployed.” In this cartoon, posted by artist Zhai Haijun (翟海军) to his QQ.com blog, Uncle Sam, riding a bicycle with US$ wheels uphill, looks back at a bicycler representing Europe and points up to the top of the hill, which remains invisible.

In late 2011 China has been seized by an intensified political chill across the board, continuing what appears to be a general tightening trend since August. He Weifang (贺卫方), one of China’s leading proponents of rule of law and press freedom, posted on his Sina Weibo account on December 11: “The ship of reform has come upon dangerous shoals. The red city to the West [Chongqing] resorts to endless scheming. Utopia [the radical leftist website] is fierce as a starving tiger. And the Nanfang Daily Group [known for its bolder reporting] is as quiet as a cicada in the frost.” This cartoon, which He Weifang appended to the above post on Sina Weibo, is drawn by artist Kuang Biao (邝飚), and depicts a lawyer (holding a book that says “law”) and a journalist, both with their mouths forcibly shut by a dark figure in the background. The anonymity of the figure in the back strikes home the point that China’s political future remains uncertain in the midst of jockeying ahead of next year’s Party Congress.

During the first week of December 2012, Chinese media turned their attention to the serious problem of pollution in Beijing and other cities. Poor visibility due to smog in the capital of Beijing caused the cancellation or delay of hundreds of flights.
In this cartoon, posted by artist Shang Haichun (商海春) to his QQ.com blog, a city resident wearing a mask to protect himself from pollution gazes up, where just the tips of nearby skyscrapers are visible. All the city features around him are invisible in the smog. The cartoon is drawn in a narrow vertical manner, mirroring traditional Chinese landscape paintings.

We noted at CMP yesterday that the rhetoric of online information control has been gearing up in China in recent days, focusing on social media and particularly on microblogging platforms like Sina Weibo. Like the recent action by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television to ban the insertion of advertisements in television dramas in China, the intensified campaign against “unhealthy” information online — microblog rumors are characterized as a “drugs,” for example — takes its cues from the October “Decision” on so-called cultural reforms.
One of the most important in a recent spate of signals in China’s state media is an article in the People’s Daily by Wang Chen (王晨), the director of the State Internet Information Office, the internet control agency created under the State Council Information Office on May 4, 2011.
In the piece, which reflects the Party’s official position on social media, Wang makes the importance of the recent high-level Party meeting on culture clear from the outset. The Party must, he says, “conscientiously implement a number of deployment demands in the ‘Decision’ of the Sixth Plenum of the Party’s 17th Central Committee concerning the ‘development of a healthy and upright online culture,’ the ‘strengthening of public opinion channeling on the internet, singing the ideological and cultural main theme online” and ‘strengthening the channeling and control of social media and real-time communication tools (即时通信工具).'”
Since President Hu Jintao’s address at People’s Daily in June 2008, the concept of “public opinion channeling,” or yulun yindao (舆论引导), has been a central part of the Party’s press control strategy. It implies a more modern, slightly more savvy approach to traditional “public opinion guidance,” the notion (born in June 1989) that the Party must enforce its political line in the media in order to maintain social and political stability and Party rule.
“Public opinion channeling,” which CMP Director Qian Gang has called “Control 2.0,” focuses not just on restricting information but ensuring that the Party’s own authoritative version of the facts predominates. In other words, information can no longer be simply controlled through traditional censorship tactics — it has to be actively spun as well.
The following is a more or less full translation of Wang Chen’s remarks in the People’s Daily.

“Actively Carrying Out Public Opinion Channeling Work”
Wang Chen (王晨), Director of the State Internet Information Office
People’s Daily
November 28, 2011
Microblogs, as a new application of the internet, are vested with the qualities of rapid transmission, broad coverage and strong influence, and they are an important platform for the transmission of information. We must, in order to strategically raise the governing capacity of our Party and government, conscientiously implement a number of deployment demands in the “Decision” of the sixth plenum of the Party’s 17th Central Committee concerning the “development of a healthy and upright online culture,” the “strengthening of public opinion channeling on the internet, singing the ideological and cultural main theme online” and “strengthening the channeling and control of social media and real-time communication tools (即时通信工具)”. As suits the new circumstances, [we must] use new platforms, actively carrying out public opinion channeling work through microblogs, working hard to use microblogs to serve the masses and serve society.
[We must] transmit advanced culture (先进文化) and promote and develop healthy social trends through the Weibo. Now many regions have prioritized the strengthening of microblog content building, using microblogs to transmit scientific theories, advocate advanced culture, promote social uprightness and espouse good [social] habits, encouraging a flourishing internet culture and the development of internet civilization (网络文明). [Here, Wang talks about the “great results” this year in using microblogs to bolster propaganda objectives like the celebration of the Party’s 90th anniversary]. [We] hope that various regions and various units will actively put microblogging [technology] to use, maintaining closeness to the truth, closeness to life and closeness to the masses, releasing more healthy and beneficial new content, revealing more fully a positive new [climate of] prevailing practices (积极向上的新风尚) [on social media], reflecting more fully the new gesture of protecting the people’s fundamental interests, further raising the capacity for public opinion channeling and response [to sudden-breaking incidents and news stories], better serving economic reform and opening and modernization.
[We must] provide more rich and various information services through microblogs. Right now, around 50 microblogging sites within our borders have a total of more than 200 million new posts each day, providing a diverse sea of information, adding convenience to the masses of internet users in their study, work and life. [We] must actively encourage relevant parties to provide even more useful information in areas such as commerce, lifestyle, education and entertainment, satisfying internet users’ multi-faceted, diverse and multi-layered spiritual culture demand (精神文化需求) [NOTE: This awkward terms simply refers to demand for information and content, but we leave the more direct term to give a flavor of the official discourse here]. [We] must more fully utilize microblogs to promote economic development and serve the active needs of the social masses, ensuring that microblogs become a channel for transmitting advanced socialist culture (社会主义先进文化), a new platform for public culture services (公共文化服务), and a new space for the healthy cultural lives of the people.
[We must] encourage greater interaction and discussion among internet users through microblogs. Information generated in discussion and exchange among web users constitutes the bulk of microblog content, and the primary demand of web users in utilizing microblogs is that they can be used for the exchange of ideas and emotions and for conversation in life and work. In particular, the use of microblogs by internet users to share their joys and grievances, effectively work out their emotions and balance their mindsets has promoted microblogs in becoming an important social platform through which the public can exchange and converse. [We] hope the celebrity microbloggers (知名博主) can continue to develop their sensitivity to the national circumstances and to the social situation, raising their sense of social responsibility, thoroughly taking on a positive role in channeling online public opinion.
[We must] build internet civilization through microblogs. In recent years, the campaign of “running a civilized Web, and going online in a civilized manner” (文明办网、文明上网) has steadily moved forward, and has effectively purified the online environment, raising the level of internet civilization (提升了网络文明水平). Building internet civilization is an important part of the [project of] building socialist spiritual civilization (社会主义精神文明建设). Many writers, scholars, artists and advanced workers from various quarters have actively taken up use of microblogs to expound scientific theories [i.e., what is rational in the Party’s view], propagate the socialist core value system (社会主义核心价值体系), to share knowledge drawn from their work, to introduce their cultural products, etcetera, resulting in the emergence of internet cultural products that are vested with a Chinese style, show the spirit of the age and are of good taste. [We] hope that websites and our web user friends further establish an internet civilization consciousness (网络文明意识), acting on the “view of honor and shame” (荣辱观) by which “abiding by law and discipline brings honor, and acting against the law and discipline bring shame.” [NOTE: This is a reference to Hu Jintao’s “Eight Honors and Eight Shames,” which were introduced during the internet cleansing campaign in 2007. It was during that year that the idea of a “civilized Web” was drummed home by the leadership. Web portals were pressed to clean up their act along the lines indicated by the Party, and they signed up to public pledges for a “cleaner” internet.] [This is about] advocating civilized expression (倡文明表达), creating a civilized atmosphere (创文明环境), posting civilized blog [and microblog] posts (发文明博文), and being civilized blog [and microblog] account holders (做文明博主) — promoting microblogs in becoming a new platform for the transmission of positive information (积极向上信息) and rational and civilized expression of opinion, in becoming a cultural and public opinion front in actualizing the Socialist View of Honor and Shame (社会主义荣辱观) and promoting the socialist core value system.
[We must] use microblogs as a means for Party organizations and governments to better interact with the masses and serve the masses. For some time now, Party and government organizations at various levels, people’s congresses and political consultative conferences, judicial organs and other state organs as well as people’s groups and public officers, all have used microblogs to better understand the social mood and public opinion, to listen to the voices of the masses, to care about the hardships of the masses — and they have used microblogs as an important channel for connecting with and serving the masses. Up to this point, Party and government organs and public officers have opened up a total of 40,000 microblog accounts. These include the Information Office of the Nanjing City Government in Jiangsu province, the political affairs microblog of Aksu Prefecture in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, the microblog group of Mudan District in Heze City in Shandong, and a whole group of other official Party and government microblogs that issue government affairs-related information in a timely manner, showing active concern, realizing good-natured interaction with the masses, promoting work of substance. [Here Wang talks further about the hope that Party and governments organs and leaders will continue to use social media actively as a means to better interact with the public and understand their concerns].
As we actively encourage various aspects [on the government side, intellectuals, member of the public etc.] to actively use microblogs to serve society, we must recognize that there are a number of problems involved in the use of microblogs that must be settled urgently. A small number of people use microblogs to fabricate and disseminate rumors, or to transmit obscene or vulgar information, intentionally violating the rights of others and carrying out illegal online public relations [activities]. These must be investigated and handled according to laws and regulations. When they are online, internet users must obey the law and discipline themselves, not transmitting rumors and not believing rumors. Various microblogging sites must strengthen their management of information posting, not providing a transmission channel to illegal or harmful information.. [We] invite the online masses to actively notify [authorities] of obscene or other harmful information, so that together we can create a creditable, healthy and civilized internet environment.
Strengthening the use and management of microblogs and other new media, promoting the building of internet culture, is a pressing demand in the strengthening of the building of the governing capacity of the Party and the government in the new era. In fact, the question of how to develop and manage microblogs is one many nations in the world together face. . . [Closing is about following President Hu Jintao’s leadership in tackling all of the above-mentioned issues and “promoting social harmony and stability.”]
http://www.scio.gov.cn/ztk/hlwxx/07/3/201111/t1055267.htm
王晨主任在《人民日报》发表署名文章：积极开展微博客舆论引导工作
国务院新闻办公室门户网站 www.scio.gov.cn | 发布:2011-11-28 | 来源：人民日报 | 作者：
积极开展微博客舆论引导工作
中央外宣办、国家互联网信息办主任
王　晨
微博客作为互联网一种新应用，具有传播快、覆盖广、影响大等特点，是信息传播的一个重要平台。我们要从提高党和政府治国理政能力的战略高度，认真贯彻落实党的十七届六中全会《决定》中有关“发展健康向上的网络文化”、“加强网上舆论引导，唱响网上思想文化主旋律”和“加强对社交网络和即时通信工具等的引导和管理”的部署要求，适应新形势、运用新平台，积极开展微博客舆论引导工作，努力运用微博客服务群众、服务社会。
通过微博客传播先进文化、弘扬社会正气。现在不少地区和单位重视加强微博客内容建设，通过微博客宣传科学理论，传播先进文化，弘扬社会正气，倡导良好风尚，推动了网络文化繁荣和网络文明的发展。特别是今年以来，充分发挥微博客等新技术新应用的作用，成功开展了隆重庆祝中国共产党成立九十周年等一系列重大主题报道，浓墨重彩讴歌了我们党团结带领全国各族人民夺取革命、建设、改革开放伟大胜利的丰功伟绩。希望各地区各单位积极运用微博客，坚持贴近实际、贴近生活、贴近群众，更多发布健康有益的新内容，更多展现积极向上的新风尚，更多反映维护人民群众根本利益的新举措，进一步提高舆论引导和应对能力，更好地为改革开放和现代化建设服务。
通过微博客提供丰富多彩的信息服务。目前，境内50余家微博客网站每天更新帖文达2亿多条，提供了丰富多彩的海量信息，方便了广大网民的学习工作和生活。要积极鼓励有关方面提供更多商务类、生活类、教育类、文娱类等实用信息，满足网民多方面、多样化、多层次的精神文化需求，更好地发挥微博客促进经济发展、服务社会大众的积极作用，使微博客成为传播社会主义先进文化的新途径、公共文化服务的新平台、人们健康精神文化生活的新空间。
通过微博客促进网民沟通交流。网民沟通交流的信息是微博客内容的主体，进行情感思想沟通和工作生活交流是网民使用微博客的主要需求。特别是网民通过微博客分享快乐、分担忧伤，有效疏导了情绪、平衡了心态，推动微博客成为公众沟通交流的重要社交平台。希望知名博主不断增进对国情、社情、网情的了解，增强社会责任感，充分发挥在网上舆论引导中的积极作用。
通过微博客推进网络文明建设。近年来，“文明办网、文明上网”活动不断推进，有效净化了网络环境，提升了网络文明水平。网络文明建设是社会主义精神文明建设的重要内容。许多作家、学者、艺术家和各界先进工作者等积极使用微博客阐释科学理论、宣传社会主义核心价值体系、交流工作心得、推介文化产品等，形成了具有中国气派、体现时代精神、品位高雅的网络文化品牌。希望网站和网民朋友进一步树立网络文明意识，践行“以遵纪守法为荣，以违法乱纪为耻”的荣辱观，倡文明表达、创文明环境,发文明博文、做文明博主，推动微博客成为传播积极向上信息和文明理性表达意见的新平台，成为践行社会主义荣辱观、弘扬社会主义核心价值体系的文化阵地、舆论阵地。
通过微博客推动党政机关和领导干部更好地联系群众、服务群众。一段时间以来，各级党政、人大、政协、司法等国家机关和人民团体及公职人员，通过微博客了解社情民意，倾听群众呼声、了解群众愿望、关心群众疾苦，把微博客作为联系群众、服务群众的重要渠道。目前，党政机关及公职人员已开设的4万多个微博客账户，包括江苏省南京市政府新闻办、新疆维吾尔自治区阿克苏市政务微博群、山东省菏泽市牡丹区政务微博群等一大批党政机关官方微博客，及时发布政务信息，认真回应关切，实现了与公众的良性互动，推动了实际工作。我们希望党政机关和党政领导干部、特别是与民生密切相关的部门和公职人员，通过微博客问政于民、问需于民、问计于民，妥善回应网上热点，努力引导好社会舆论，切实维护人民群众的合法权益。在使用微博客时，希望党政机关和公职人员严格区分职务行为和个人行为，遵守有关政治纪律和组织纪律，认真维护微博客，及时更新信息，提高沟通质量，加强良性互动，扩大社会影响。
在积极鼓励各个方面运用微博客服务社会的同时，也应看到目前微博客使用中还存在着一些亟待解决的问题。少数人利用微博客编造和散布谣言，传播淫秽色情低俗信息，故意侵犯他人权益，进行非法网络公关，必须依法依规予以查处。网民在上网时应守法自律，不传谣、不信谣。微博客网站应加强信息发布管理，不给违法有害信息提供传播渠道。欢迎广大公众积极举报网上淫秽色情等有害信息，共同创建一个诚信健康文明的网络环境。
加强对微博客等新兴媒体的运用和管理，推进网络文化建设，是新时期加强党和政府执政能力建设的迫切要求。实际上，对微博客如何发展和管理也是世界上不少国家面临的共同课题。我们要在以胡锦涛同志为总书记的党中央坚强领导下，深入贯彻落实中央关于互联网建设管理的一系列重要精神，坚持积极利用、科学发展、依法管理、确保安全的方针，解放思想，与时俱进，积极应对，兴利除弊，努力做好微博客舆论引导工作，充分发挥微博客服务群众服务社会的作用，促进社会和谐稳定，为党和国家工作大局服务，为广大人民群众服务。
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There have been unrelenting signals since August that Chinese leaders plan to act more robustly to control domestic social media platforms, which have been influential on a range of stories this year — from the Guo Meimei scandal to independent local people’s congress candidates. A series of pronouncements in Party publications over the past week, thankfully summarized in one place by Bill Bishop at DigiCha, seem to mark an intensification of the anti-rumor rhetoric that kicked off following the July 23 Wenzhou train collision.
The anti-rumor push, which focusses moralistically on false and misleading information — and, yes, politically uncomfortable information — as a socially dangerous scourge to be rooted out, can be seen as part of a broader attempt to legitimize the intensification of information controls. It is no surprise, therefore, to see that state media fulmination against “rumors” is drumming home the idea of rumors as “drugs” that threaten the well-being of society.
Of course, mobilizing society to accept and legitimize information controls is an increasingly difficult proposition in a country where ordinary people are growing ever more conscious of censorship and its ills. And perhaps one of the best examples of this can be seen in the online controversy brewing this weekend over the past remarks of Hu Zhanfan (胡占凡), the former Guangming Daily editor-in-chief who was appointed last month as the new head of the state-run China Central Television.

[ABOVE: Hu Zhanfan, appointed last month as the new head of CCTV, addresses a forum in January 2011 in his capacity as editor-in-chief of Guangming Daily, a paper published by the Central Propaganda Department.]
AFP had a good run down of the story yesterday, citing how internet users had seized on a July speech given by Hu Zhanfan in which he said that “[t]he first social responsibility and professional ethic of media staff should be understanding their role clearly and be a good mouthpiece.”
In fact, Hu Zhanfan made the controversial remarks back in January this year at a special forum dealing with the issue of “fake news.” The event was hosted by Guangming Daily, a newspaper published by the Party’s Central Propaganda Department.
Hu’s speech drew little attention at the time, and his appointment last month to head up CCTV received little comment. But posts on social media over the weekend likening Hu Zhanfan to the infamous Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, known in Chinese as gepei’er (戈培尔), put Hu at the center of an online firestorm.
Posts like this one juxtaposed CCTV’s official nightly newscast, Xinwen Lianbo (新闻联播), and photos of Chinese crowds waving red flags with black-and-white images from Nazi-era Germany. In clear reference to the Party’s anti-rumor campaign, posts like this one offered the apocryphal Goebbels quote about repeating lies: “If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.”
In yet another Sina Weibo post, a Chinese internet user asked: “When will Goebbels-style news controls end [in China]?” The post was a response to another post by writer Murong Xuecun (慕容雪村), who has frequently spoken out against censorship in China. Murong Xuecun’s post, which referred to the recent death of toddler Xiao Yueyue in southern China (after she was callously ignored by passersby after being struck twice by vehicles), read:

Experience teaches us that people gain much more from negative news. If you’ve watched Xinwen Lianbo, [the Party’s official nightly newscast], over the past 30 years, you’ve learned nothing useful . . . But a single Xiao Yueyue incident caused many to understand the responsibilities parents have and how passersby should conduct themselves . . . “Criticism” implies moral choice. Speak the truth and the sky won’t fall — it will just wake people up.

The official anti-rumor campaign and the anti-censorship firestorm on social media (which of course are the primary target of the anti-rumor campaign) together provide an interesting snapshot of tensions over information and censorship in China.
Further, it is interesting to note that opinion within China’s media does not hold that Hu Zhanfan takes a particularly hardline stance on press controls. In fact, some journalists consider him to be a rather liberal figure, and would suggest that his conservative remarks on the role of the press in China reflect nothing more than the fact that he was the Party boss of a major Party-run newspaper.
So can we regard these inflammatory statements on social media about “China’s Goebbel” as just more rumor?
The following is a partial translation of official media coverage of Hu Zhanfan’s remarks on the role of the press last January:

“Guangming Daily Holds Special Education and Training Session on ‘Avoiding Fake News’”
Editor-in-chief Hu Zhanfan’s talk dealt principally with five points: The first was about what is fake news; the second about the reasons for fake news; the third about the harm done by fake news; the fourth about social responsibility and professional ethics; the fifth about putting an end to falsehood and upholding responsibility and morals.
Concerning the nature of fake news, editor-in-chief Hu Zhanfan said, fake news refers to reports that do not truly reflect the original appearance (本来面貌) of things, which fabricate, twist or invent news facts. These common traits go against the objective facts upon which news relies, and wantonly rely on the will of individuals, seeking or relying on will of others to manufacture “news.” He used a rich variety of examples to talk about different forms of fake news, including embellishing stories . . .
Editor-in-chief Hu Zhanfan believes that in recent years fake news has shown a number of new characteristics. First, [fake news] has spread from commercialized, metro media to traditional authoritative [Party] media. Second, it has spread from entertainment and social news to economic and political news. Third, as traditional and internet-based media have had a more interactive relationship, fake news has been transmitted much more rapidly and widely. Fourth, there has been a trend from simple concocting of fake news to making idle reports, reporting gossip, exaggerating, going against common knowledge and other such issues, which have steadily spread.
Concerning the reasons for the spread of fake news, editor-in-chief Hu Zhanfan said that the principle reason was the drive for [personal] benefit (利益的驱动). Specifically, the impulse for economic gain had resulted in the emergence of a commercial trend in news; for the sake of finishing their task or making a name for themselves, individual reporters though nothing of fabricating news; some media, in order to attract eyeballs (吸引眼球), directly engaged in fake news. The second reason, [Hu said], was an incorrect style of work (作风不实) that caused [journalists] to chase after wind and shadows (捕风捉影). The chief reason for the emergence of fake reports, [he said], was that front-line reporters placed insufficiently strict demands on themselves and had an incorrect style of work. Some reporters showed insufficient cultivation, had low-quality behavior, had a flippant approach to work, and this had opened the door to fake news. The third and underlying root reason for fake news was the question of the Marxist View of Journalism (马克思主义新闻观). A number of news workers have not defined their own role in terms of the propaganda work of the Party, but rather have defined themselves as journalism professionals, and this is a fundamentally erroneous role definition. Strengthening education in the Marxist View of Journalism and raising the quality and character of news teams is not just very necessary, it is a matter of extreme urgency.
Concerning the damage done by fake news, editor-in-chief Hu Zhanfan pointed out that fake news and false reports (失实报道) not only damage the reputation of news journalists and the credibility of the media, but they also hamper, interfere with and destroy guidance of public opinion, damaging social order and economic order and seriously and even directly impacting social stability. For the media, winning the trust of the people is a project that will take years and years, built up through report after report. But the emergence of a single false report can extinguish everything that has been gained . . .
Concerning social responsibility and professional ethics, editor-in-chief Hu Zhanfan believes that the first and foremost social responsibility [of journalists] is to serve well as a mouthpiece tool (当好喉舌工具). This is the most core content of the Marxist View of Journalism, and it is the most fundamental of principles.