By David Bandurski — Hong Kong’s Apple Daily reported at the tip-top of page one yesterday that the Tuesday edition of People’s Daily reported nothing whatsoever of the terrorist attacks in Xinjiang that left 16 police officers dead and 16 wounded on Monday. Commercial newspapers “like Southern Metropolis Daily, Beijing Times and The Beijing News,” said the Hong Kong paper, mentioned the Xinjiang attack only briefly in the inside pages.
But while Apple Daily‘s point that coverage of the incident was scant is basically sound, it is not true the People’s Daily ran no coverage, and not exactly true that commercial papers ran the story only inside.
So what did the pages look like?
For starters, everyone did use the official Xinhua News Agency release, or tonggao (通稿), so there were no breakthroughs so far as we can see. We recommend that readers visit the Newsweek blog for some relevant observations on breaking coverage of the bombing.
First off, People’s Daily‘s front page looked like this on Tuesday morning.

At top right there is a positive story about volunteers for the Beijing Olympics. Directly below is the leading official news story, about President Hu Jintao heading up a meeting of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The story to the left and below is again about the IOC meeting, this time with the text of Hu Jintao’s remarks.
There is nothing about the Xinjiang attack. That is, until we turn to page two. There we find a busy layout full of mostly snore-inducing official announcements, including a State Council notice concerning China’s anti-monopoly law.
Once you have trudged downhill through all of this stodgy matter, however, you can locate a tiny, timid headline announcing major news: “Severe Violent Attack Against Police in Xinjiang’s Kashgar.”

This burying of major news on page two of the People’s Daily is something that happens quite frequently in China, and something we’ve called attention to before.
Moving on to the Beijing Times, a commercial spin-off of the official People’s Daily, we see a slight change in treatment of the Xinjiang story, reminiscent of the way the two papers treated the Liu Zhihua corruption case in 2006.
Here is Tuesday’s front page at the Beijing Times.

The leading news stories are about the Beijing route to be taken by the Olympic torch, and the starting time for the opening ceremony in the “Bird’s Nest” (4 pm for those of you who are curious).
The larger headline toward the bottom of the page — the one circled in red — is about the Xinjiang attack. The headline reads: “16 Killed in Bomb Attack on Border Police in Kashgar.”
We are then referred to page 17 for the full article, presumably the Xinhua news release, but the page has, for some unknown reason, been removed from the newspaper’s electronic version.
Readers should notice, however, that aside from placement and headline size, the Beijing Times has reported the number of police who died in the attack directly in the front page headline.
And what about Southern Metropolis Daily, one of China’s leading commercial newspapers singled out by Apple Daily?
Southern Metropolis Daily does in fact give the Xinjiang story front page treatment, emphasizing again the number of dead and injured. “Bomb Attack on Police,” announces a bold yellow headline against a black background, “16 Dead, 16 Injured.”

We are then referred to page A23 for more coverage. There we find a great big headline again announcing 16 dead and 16 injured, but adding that two suspects are now in custody. At right, in the upper right-hand corner of the page, we find the Xinhua release.

The Oriental Morning Post, one of Shanghai’s leading commercial newspapers, gives the story even more prominent front page play.
The headline is less conspicuous, placed underneath a fatter banner headline for a story about the closure of stores in subway stations as an Olympic Games safety measure. The smaller headline reads: “16 Killed, 16 Injured in Bomb Attack on Border Police in Kashgar.”
But directly below this small headline is a dominating image, an artist reconstruction, of how the Xinjiang attack might have happened.

Oriental Morning Post coverage continues on page 3 with the Xinhua release on the Xinjiang attack, following immediately below by the paper’s own report on statements by Olympics officials about safety and anti-terrorism during the Games.

Like the Oriental Morning Post, the Metro Times, a commercial newspaper in China’s southwest Yunnan Province, augments the Xinjiang release on the terrorist attack with comments from the IOC on safety at the Games — this time a news release from China News Service.
Directly below the official wire story on the IOC is the paper’s own commentary, followed by comments from Web users taken from major Internet news sites.
The result at Metro Times is what looks like more comprehensive coverage. Look more closely, however, and you will realize that all of the coverage keeps tightly to party discipline — there is a clear emphasis on positive news.

That said, Metro Times does give us what is probably the boldest front page headline on the Xinjiang attack, spread right across the top of the page and giving us the number of dead and injured.

Clearly, given a propaganda department ban, no newspapers have gone out on a limb on this story, unlike the Liu Zhihua case two years ago, when the Oriental Morning Post made the gutsy move of augmenting the official news release with information on Liu given on the Beijing city government website.
That information, following Xinhua’s report of Liu’s “corrupt and degenerate” activities, pointed to his senior position in the Beijing city leadership — and also, we should remember, to the fact that he was responsible for overseeing the construction of sporting venues for this year’s Olympic Games.
[Posted by David Bandurski, August 7, 2008, 5:29pm]

By David Bandurski — As Chinese citizens attempt with little success to obtain access to government information whose release is mandated by the national ordinance on openness of government information, the new legislation is looking increasingly like an empty slogan. [Frontpage: Screenshot of information openness coverage on the Greatwall Broadband Network website. The “black box” of secrecy is dropped and the open box of “openness of government information” upheld.]
So what of the era of “sunshine government” that Chinese leaders promised when the ordinance was approved in 2007?
Realistically, of course, the legislation, which faces a recalcitrant political culture of secrecy, will need time to become effective.
But while China Newsweekly has argued repeatedly that realization of the ordinance’s promises will require pressure through repeated cases brought by citizens, cases have so far fizzled. China’s court system, which is often manipulated by party officials, seems utterly unable to push the government to live up to its promises.

[ABOVE: Want government information? It’s this easy in Weihai’s Yuancui District.]

An editorial in the Xi’an Evening Post added its own soft pressure on the issue of information openness on Monday, arguing that government decisions against releasing information should be made according to the law.
A translation of the editorial follows:

To Release or Not is a Question for Law
By Qiao Shan (乔杉)
Recently the Beijing city government issued a document stating that if government information cannot be made public, then the reason for this should be explained to the public. Just days ago the city government’s most recent communique included five documents concerning openness of government information, stating that administrative offices must set up information platforms (信息平台) in order to swiftly gather information from the public about false information.
The timely release of government information is of great importance to ensuring the public’s right to know (公众知情权). We should see that in recent years, from the central government right down to local governments, this issue has gotten a lot of attention, and the public’s right to know has been elevated to a level not previously seen. As we acknowledge this, however, we cannot deny that some local areas still make an empty show of openness. Others avoid the release of information if at all possible and decide to release information selectively only under pressure from superior officials and public opinion. This kind of selective openness is regrettable.
It is a positive development that the Beijing city government has issued a document saying that reasons should be given in cases where there is no way to make information public. But we must also realize that under the notion of there being “no way to make information public” (无法公开) we are shielded from much information that really can be made public. This leads us to a problem, and that is the question of who has the right to say whether government information can be made public or not? The public certainly feels that the more information that can be made public the better. As for those in positions of power, they harbor the sense that less public information is better. We should say that on the law can decide the question of whether information is made public or not.
The People’s Republic of China Ordinance on Openness of Government Information (中华人民共和国政府信息公开条例) that went into effect on May 1 ths year clearly lays out the nature of information that should be released public and the procedures for doing so. Governments at various levels should act in line with the spirit of the ordinance, “releasing [information] according to the law.” It is a fact that some government information will concern issues of national and commercial secrecy, and under specified circumstances there will be information that it is not convenient to release. As to what information cannot be released, this should be a question of law – [the government] must “release [information] according to law” and “not release [information] according to law.” Article 14 of the ordinance states clearly that, “before releasing government information administrative departments should conduct a review according to the PRC National Secrecy Law (中华人民共和国保守国家秘密法) and other relevant laws, statutes and national regulations of the information to be released. When administrative departments cannot determine whether or not information can be released, they should, according to laws, statutes and relevant national regulations, make a report to their [superior] administrative departments (主管部门) or work departments at the same administrative level which deal with issues of secrecy for their determination.” Looking at these stipulations [in the ordinance], only after they have gone through the proper legal procedures concerning a particular item of information can they determine that it cannot be released.
When the “legal release [of information]” (依法公开) is so difficult, and when it is even harder to [get governments to make] “legal determinations of non-release” (依法不公开), this reveals at a higher level the government’s [weak] sense of rule of law and transparency. Because only when information release is denied in accordance with the law can we ensure that national secrecy does not become a pretext for not making information public.
(The writer is a journalist)

[Posted by David Bandurski, August 6, 2008, 10:46am HK]

By David Bandurski — Since China’s National Ordinance on Openness of Government Information, or xinxi gongkai tiaoli (政府信息公开条例), took effect back on May 1 this year, domestic media say the government has faced a “wave” of formal information requests from aggrieved and inquisitive citizens. And as CMP noted earlier this month, Chinese media have been using the ordinance to push the topic of information openness as well as related issues like freedom of expression.
However, a report from last week’s China Newsweekly magazine, which has offered continued coverage of the ordinance since May, suggests party leaders are (as is to be expected) less than enthusiastic about the prospect of greater public scrutiny.

[ABOVE: Image of cover of publicly available version of China’s national openness of information ordinance.]

The article, “Information Openness Face-off: Citizens Are ‘Hot’ and the Government is ‘Cold,‘” begins by reiterating a point China Newsweekly has made repeatedly, that “the strongest force in pushing openness of information comes from various specific demands.”
But up to now, those demands have been getting the cold shoulder, and the net result is not encouraging.

[NOTE, August 1, 2008: When we posted this piece yesterday, we neglected to mention or translate one of the most revealing facts in the China Newsweekly report. Concerning Huang Tianyou’s request for release of information, discussed in the portion below, the article says: “On June 23, a judge from the intermediate court said to him, ‘This case of yours has a major impact, not just domestically but internationally, so the opinion of the provincial court and the supreme court must be sought before a decision is made.” This is a wonderful example of how court officials in China often render political rather than legal decisions.

A partial translation of the magazine’s report follows:

Up to now, Huang Youjian (黄由俭) has still not received notice of whether his case has been accepted by the superior court in Hunan province. As of July 14 it had already been 20 days since he first brought the case to court.
Upset at problems stemming from enterprise restructuring efforts, a number of retired workers from the water works in Hunan’s Rucheng County (汝城县) [including Huang] had continually attempted to voice their grievances through the petitions system. When they heard later that the Rucheng county government had carried out an investigation of problems in enterprise restructuring and had “produced an objective investigative report,” they demanded that the government make the report public.
Because they opted to bring their case at the first opportunity after the National Ordinance on Openness of Government Information took effect [on May 1], their case was widely viewed as a test case.
It was called China’s “first openness of information suit.” But so far no court has even agreed to hear the case, nor have they received any formal notification of denial.
The twists and turns of this case demonstrate the difficulties facing openness of information.
The materials under question in the case are readily available, so why won’t the courts accept it?
It is 11 o’clock in the evening before 67 year-old Huang Youjian returns home. The situation of the case has become “more and more critical,” and he must work night after night with more than 20 of his fellow retirees to work out a plan of action. It is July 13.
The consensus is that they should get in touch with the media and fish about for support.
They have decided to turn from the path of legal remediation and seek media support because Huang and his colleagues “already see no hope of resolving the problem” through the county, city or provincial courts.
When the banner advertising the national ordinance was hung over the entrance to the county government on May 1, Huang felt excited, but now, he says, he has “once again returned to that place of helplessness” . . .
In a series of requests made by Zhu Fuxiang (朱福祥), a resident of Si Ji Qing Township (四季青镇) in Beijing’s Haiding District, concerning land and environmental planning, you can see even more clearly the state of implementation of the “ordinance.”
On May 8, Zhu Fuxiang filed a request with the Beijing Municipal Planning Commission to obtain Si Ji Qing Township’s report on environmental planning for a building project by [developer] Chang Qing Tong Da (常青通达建设项目). The planning commission instead gave him a document explaining planning conditions for the project, and when he told government employees that this was not what he had requested, he was told: “Our bosses said to give you this response.”
When he applied to the Land Bureau for release of information about land use for the Mentou New Village project (门头新村建设项目) things played out in the same way. “What we asked them for was information about how much peasant land was used, and how much was used for development of marketable housing. What they gave us was an approval document for requisition of the land,” Zhu Fuxiang said.
When he applied with the township government for information about the mode of use of two buildings in Si Ji Xing Township’s jurisdiction, they responded: “The information you requested does not exist.”
On June 23, Zhu Fuxiang went again to the planning commission, this time to request information concerning the planning permit (规划许可证) for one of Chang Qing Tong Da’s commercial projects. A government employee told him that if he wanted to obtain the information, he first needed to track down the number of the document he required, otherwise they could not provide it. “We’ve never seen this document, so how could we possibly know what its number is?” Zhu Fuxiang said discouragedly . . .
In the space of two months, Zhu Fuxiang faced perhaps every excuse that could be given for not providing information: the answer to the wrong question, the information does not exist, and it is inconvenient to provide the information you ask . . .

[Posted by David Bandurski, July 31, 2008, 11:38am HK]

By David Bandurski — As Hong Kong’s Ming Pao reports today, The Beijing News, one of China’s leading professional newspapers, has committed what propaganda authorities will indeed regard as a very, very serious violation of propaganda discipline by printing a photo of injured Chinese being carted away during the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen crackdown. As one media insider exclaimed to us this morning: “This is a major deal!” (这是非常大的事件！). [See ESWN for a brief English summary of the Ming Pao report].
However, according to one CMP source still involved with the paper, The Beijing News does not yet face immediate pressure from the authorities. The source also said that not all copies of the paper had been pulled from Beijing newsstands.
CMP will watch this event closely as it unfolds, but the case certainly puts party leaders in a unwelcome bind.
By propaganda standards, the newspaper’s action is resolutely unacceptable. But the Beijing Olympics are just around the corner, and this could potentially turn into a firestorm more serious than the January 2006 Freezing Point affair — bringing the events of June 4 right back to the center of China’s international image.
The violation in question is a published photo by former Associated Press photographer Liu Heung Shing (刘香成) taken during the government crackdown on demonstrators in Beijing on June 4, 1989. The image shows two injured Chinese being rushed away on pedal carts.

[Image of the page from The Beijing News appearing in today’s Ming Pao, thanks to Roland Soong at ESWN.]

The photo reportedly appeared on page C15 of the newspaper beside an interview with Liu Heung Shing, part of an interview series on “30 Years of Reform in China.”
Mr. Liu is currently an executive with News Corporation (China) and lives in Beijing, where he has just refurbished a traditional courtyard house.
THIS JUST IN:
[August 1: See the Newsweek Blog for an excellent retelling of just what happened at The Beijing News.]
“Beijing paper in hot water for 1989 crackdown photo,” Reuters, July 25, 2008, 1:37pm HK
“China paper censored for Tiananmen photo,” Associated Press, July 25, 2008, 1:10pm HK
MORE SOURCES:
“In Beijing’s Ancient Alleys, Modern Comforts,” New York Times, July 24, 2008 [Liu has refurbished a traditional courtyard house in Beijing and now lives there.]
“The View From Here,” [About Liu’s photography and the Olympics] SCMP, July 25, 2008
“Liu Heung Shing: China stripped bare,” Times Online, July 13, 2008
“His Camera Captures the Essence of Country,” China Daily, January 16, 2008
“Liu Heung Shing Bio,” Asia2000 Publishing
[Liu Heung Shing on AP’s List of Pulitzer Prize winners]
“Star TV Selects VP of Comms for China,” [About Liu and News Corporation] PR Week, November 13, 2000
[Posted by David Bandurski, July 25, 2008, 10:52am HK]

By David Bandurski — The case against Yang Jia (杨佳), the 28 year-old Beijing man allegedly behind a July 1 stabbing spree in which six Shanghai police officers were killed, might have seemed cut-and-dried two weeks ago. But the case has been clouded with numerous questions in recent days, not least the whereabouts of Yang’s mother, who was reportedly carted away by Shanghai police in Beijing on the day of the attack to “cooperate with the investigation.”
Yet again, the critical question concerns information, transparency and accountability. The public wants answers. What did police do to make Yang so angry? Why can’t Yang be allowed to publicly state the reasons for his actions? What are the police hiding?
Authorities in Shanghai and Beijing want the case handled swiftly and quietly.
A China Daily report shortly after the stabbing spree noted that “the knife attack caused widespread anger in China, although some people expressed sympathy for Yang.” But the top editorial on QQ.com yesterday was begging a very different question. The headline read: “So, There Are Actually So Many Who Support Yang Jia, and Who Hate the Police.”

[ABOVE: Screenshot of Information Times July 20 coverage of the Yang Jia case.]

In fact, the top eight editorials on QQ.com yesterday were all related to the Yang Jia case.
Coming in at number eight was Chang Ping’s latest editorial. (Readers may wish to note that despite the May controversy that led to Chang’s “removal” as deputy editor at Southern Metropolis Weekly, he is listed here — and he has been for previous editorials this summer — as “deputy editor of Southern Metropolis Weekly.”)

[ABOVE: Screenshot of top QQ editorials listed for July 22, 2008, 4:19pm HK]

The second-ranking editorial on QQ, by CMP fellow Yan Lieshan (鄢烈山), argued that the only way justice can be ensured in the Yang Jia case — and, more to the point, the only way the public will accept the verdict — is if it is moved to a new court outside Shanghai and Beijing.
The editorial, printed in yesterday’s edition of the Pearl River Evening News (珠江晚报), had drawn more than 25,000 responses from Web users on QQ.com by late afternoon, the vast majority expressing praise for Yan Lieshan’s points.

[ABOVE: Screenshot of top of Yan Lieshan editorial listing number of posted comments at 4:21pm HK]

The more-or-less full text of Yan Lieshan’s editorial follows:

“If the Yang Jia Case is Not Held Openly in Another Location, it Will Be Difficult to Please the Public”
According to news reports, the Shanghai Municipal Procuratorate initiated public prosecution on July 17 against Yang Jia, the defendant in the Zhabei District attacks on police. The accusing side holds that the facts clearly show that Yang Jia committed murder with intent, that the evidence is entirely sufficient to show this, and that the death penalty should be sought in light of Yang’s intent. However, the question of how the case should be tried has now been entirely obscured.
Xinhua News Agency reports tell us that the Shanghai Lawyer’s Association said on July 19 that the defendant, Yang Jia, had already hired Mr. Xie Youming (谢有明) and Mr. Xie Pu (谢晋) of the Mingjiang Law Firm (名江律师事务所) to serve as his legal counsel during the trial proceedings. Nevertheless, as had already been reported elsewhere, Xie Youming serves as a legal adviser for the Zhabei District Government, which means he shares a “boss” with the Zhabei police. This throws Xie’s independence and impartiality in the public eye into question. Before this, Yang Jia had in writing entrusted the selection of his legal counsel to his mother. The two lawyers [from Minjiang] had gone to Beijing to see Yang Jia’s mother, and Yang agreed to their representation only after he saw his mother’s own signature on documents presented to him. But according to the Jinghua Times, Yang’s mother, Wang Jing (王静), was taken away by police [in Beijing] the day of the incident [of the attack on police officers in Shanghai], and relatives have been unable to make contact with her since. There is information suggesting that Wang Jing was taken to Shanghai to “cooperate with the investigation.” Many journalists have posed this question to Shanghai police for their confirmation, but they have remained silent. As the whereabouts of Yang’s mother remains a mystery, a lawyer retained by Yang Jia’s father has visited Shanghai from Beijing, and his requests to visit Yang in custody have been denied. A legal scholar writing in The Beijing News on July 17 criticized the situation, saying “suspense over Yang Jia’s legal representation did not bode well for a fair trial.”
Also on July 17, China Youth Daily ran a report called, “Does Damaging the Image of Public Security Organs Constitute Defamation?” The article criticized the detention of Suzhou male Jia Xiaoyin (郏啸寅), who was accused of “slandering police and disrupting social order under Article 246 of the Criminal Law” for an Internet post that said Yang Jia had sought revenge after a beating at the hands of Zhabei police had damaged his genitals. What I find strange is that, even supposing this Jia is guilty, why was he not arrested in cooperation with police in Jiangsu, but captured instead by Shanghai police who crossed jurisdictional boundaries? Can we not assume that upholding social order and fairness is the business of authorities in Jiangsu as well?
We should notice the fact that perhaps all of these reports on Yang Jia talk about him as a youth with a strong respect for laws and principles, who can’t even abide bad habits like tossing garbage or cutting corners. What happened at the police substation that would make this sort of young person so enraged? When media asked at a press conference to have a look at five hours of footage of Yang Jia’s questioning, their request was denied. If there is no open trial, and we have only the accusers saying his person was not violated, how can the public be reassured?
With this sort of public feeling, the Yang Jia murder case should be heard openly someplace other than Shanghai or Beijing, and this should be the case whether or not Yang Jia’s parents have, as news reports say, already made this request. Yang Jia’s abnormal behavior is a measure of abnormality in our own society. An expedient death for Yang Jia not only cannot “put the people’s anger to rest,” but will actually “stir the people’s doubts,” causing further damage to the Shanghai police and the law enforcement community generally. As the Olympic Games near, a quick death for Yang Jia in order to rouse the morale of the Shanghai police is a naive idea shared by only a few. It does not accord with the procedural fairness and extreme wariness about the death penalty that marks the age of rule of law. Acting with brutality will have exactly the opposite result. With the South China Tiger affair not far behind us, we must approach the credibility of law enforcement organs with great care.

A selection of Web postings for Yan Lieshan’s editorial on QQ.com follows:

[From 123.120.7]
Oh, brave Web editor, it’s probably pointless for you to raise these issues here. Only if you could say these things through People’s Daily, or draw the attention of CCTV’s “News Probe,” would they be of any use. Also, can’t Yang Jia’s appeal documents and e-mails be made public! They’re not state secrets, right? They should take care not to be too “Zhou Zhenglong” [of the South China Tiger controversy].
[From Xiamen]
Between Yang Gui and the Shanghai police, who was it that first got a rise out of the other? Who was guilty first? If what the lawyer says is true, that Yang Gui is of sound mind and has a strong sense of the law, then why did he defy death to go after the Shanghai police? If the Shanghai police hadn’t violated him, would he have gone after them like that? Why won’t the Shanghai police let Yang Gui come out himself and explain his reasons for commiting this crime? Where is Yang Gui’s mother?
[From 19.143.95.*]
Oh, well said! We strongly demand that the trial proceedings be held elsewhere!
[From Zhuhai]
I agree with the viewpoints expressed in this article.
[From Chaohu City]
Everyone around me disagrees with the way the Shanghai police have handled things!
[From Chengdu]
We invite foreign media to come and report on the case!
[From Beijing]
This article makes a really valid point.
[From Dongying City]
So I suppose you don’t think he should be sentenced to death?
[From Beijing]
The trial process is more important than the outcome.
[From Chongqing]
Right now I don’t care whether Little Yang dies or not. I just want to know the truth. Is it really that hard to find out the truth?
[From Nanning City]
I hope the trial can be fair, impartial and open, upholding the defendant’s legal rights.
[From Shenyang]
If the case against Yang Jia is so ironclad then why don’t they dare be open about it????????????????????
[From Kunming]
The trial should be held in Chongqing!
[From Shangqiu City]
It’s plain to see that there are ghosts infecting the hearts of the Shanghai police!
[From 117.80.115*]
The trial should be broadcast live on television. And Yang’s mother should be there.
[From Jiangsu]
I’m fully in support of trying the case outside of Shanghai.
[From Nanchang]
Have they still not found Yang Jia’s mother?

MORE SOURCES:
“Accused Police Killer Appoints Lawyers,” Shanghai Daily, July 20, 2008
“Now Stab Man’s Mum is Missing,” Shanghai Daily, July 19, 2008
“Man Charged with Murder of Six Shanghai Police: Officials,” AFP, July 17, 2008
“Cop Killer in Shanghai May Be ‘Mentally Unstable’,” China Daily, July 16, 2008
“In Cold Blood,” Danwei.org, July 3, 2008
[Posted by David Bandurski, July 23, 2008, 12:30pm HK]

By David Bandurski — The news page at QQ.com yesterday was dominated by media-related stories. There was foreign ministry spokesperson Liu Jianchao (刘建超) denying suggestions made by some overseas media that Olympics security procedures discriminated against certain groups of foreigners, including Africans and Mongolians. There was the news story from the Global Times about how Germany’s Stern magazine had offended the Chinese people with its map of China.
But topping the list of news stories, with a big headline splashed across the page, was news, re-run from Xinhua News Agency’s International Herald Leader, that scores of formerly taboo foreign publications were now available in the capital, thanks to the approach of the Olympic Games.
“The Olympics are coming! Foreign publications are coming too!” the article gushed.

[ABOVE: Screenshot of news page at QQ.com, 10:05 pm, July 21, 2008.]

The story said hundreds of employees from China’s “largest importer of printed materials” were busy working overtime to get publications out. Foreign publications would be made available through eight specially designated newsstands within the Olympic park, distributers said.
QQ emphasized in its headline the article’s point that publications would be available to “ordinary city residents” as well. But the newsstands are scheduled to operate until only September 24, after which time, presumably, “ordinary city residents” will be out of luck.
In an interesting illustration of how commercial calculations increasingly call the shots in China’s media, the International Herald Leader sought to sell the foreign publications story with references to America’s Playboy magazine and whether it would be available on Olympic newsstands.
The headline topping the frontpage of the latest edition of the International Herald Leader read, “Playboy’s Olympic Dream,” and the page featured a large image of a foreign male peering at an issue of the magazine. The bottom half of the page was an article about the government’s anti-terrorism efforts in the lead-up to the Games, the headline: “Beijing sounds a people’s war against terrorism.”

[Frontpage of July 21 issue of Xinhua’s International Herald Leader.]

One of the Xinhua publication’s more questionable image choices to go along with the Playboy angle of the story was a view through the gates of the Forbidden City, with the five-colored Olympic rings hanging in the grey sky beyond, and a line of Playboy covers running across the top of the entrance.

[ABOVE: Screenshot from QQ.com of IHL foreign publications story image.]

Will Playboy be available on Olympic newsstands? Responses from distributors, we are told by the International Herald Leader, were “unclear.”
[Posted by David Bandurski, July 22, 2008, 12:13am HK]

By David Bandurski — The word “muckraker,” coined in 1906 by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, has come to typify the hardest of hard-nosed journalism in the West. Words over the weekend from Guangzhou Mayor Zhang Guangning (张广宁) may offer us a moniker more appropriate for tougher Chinese journalists, who labor under an unforgiving system of press controls and are only rarely able to break major stories.
Shall we call them “the nitpickers”?
In a speech made before thousands of swimmers ventured across the Pearl River on Saturday, Mayor Zhang encouraged more media coverage of environmental problems in the Pearl River Delta. He said: “The more the media nitpick, the more we can get people behind the effort to clean up the Pearl River.”
Today, Liu Yikun (刘义昆), a college professor in Wuhan, writes in Changjiang Daily of what he sees as recent shows of tolerance on the part of leaders in Guangdong Province, including Zhang Guangning’s “nitpicking” remark.

[Liu Yikun’s article on media “nitpicking” appears in Changjiang Daily.]

Liu argues that “information openness” and “nitpicking” by China’s media is critical to the overall improvement of governance and the building of “people’s democracy.”
Liu’s piece makes what seems to be a reference to recent unrest in Weng’an, saying that if China wants to prevent “the appearance of large-scale violent events, then media nitpicking is something we need a whole lot more of.”
The title of Liu’s piece gives us another familiar reference, to the “barrier lakes” that were such a concern in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake. Liu alludes to the words of Wang Yang (汪洋), Guangdong’s party secretary, on July 19, in which he said leaders must listen to the words of the people, and not build up “language barrier lakes.” We might also translate the term as “information barrier lakes.”
A nearly complete translation of Liu’s article follows:

Preventing “Language Barrier Lakes” Requires Nitpicking by the Media
Two things happened on July 19 that speak to the liberal mindedness of leaders in Guangdong Province.
At the recent graduation ceremony of a regular party discipline training session, Provincial Party Secretary Wang Yang (汪洋) demanded that all cadres treat democracy as a value to pursue, that they respect and act according to the will of the people, that they not obstruct the popular will, creating “language barrier lakes” (言塞湖). (Nanfang Daily, July 20).
The same day, the Guangzhou city government held an event in which thousands of people swam across the Pearl River. Mayor Zhang Guangning (张广宁) led the charge into the water, saying: “The more the media nitpick, the more we can get people behind the effort to clean up the Pearl River.” (Information Times, July 20).
Guangzhou’s media are famous for their nitpicking, whether in Guangzhou itself or in other areas, whether big or small, good or bad. In the wake of many news events – the Sun Zhigang affair, the South China Tiger controversy, the [hand, foot and mouth] epidemic in Yueyang, the Wenzhou earthquake – we can see nitpicking Guangzhou media doing what they do. Of course, Mayor Zhang Guangning’s words about media nitpicking and improving water quality in the Pearl River is just one case. If we want to avoid “language barrier lakes” and the appearance of large-scale violent events, then media nitpicking is something we need a whole lot more of.
Media serve as an irreplaceable bridge in openness of information and persuasion of the people. In the South China Tiger controversy, online opinion and [mainstream media] supervision of public opinion combined to become one of the most important forces determining the event’s outcome. Shaanxi Province’s vice-governor, Zhao Zhengyong (赵正永) later said that the government’s inability to face up to supervision of public opinion had lead to a loss of public confidence and the wasting of repeated opportunities to set things right.
Media supervision of public opinion is effective because it provides an open platform. Various kinds of information and viewpoints can meet and argue it out in this public sphere (公共领域), and the ultimate result is a fuller and more accurate picture. As China’s recent history shows, when the media can serve as a channel of communication between the government and the people, it becomes a force for development and progress . . .
When Hu Jintao chatted with Internet users through the Strong Nation Forum on June 20, he said: “We put our emphasis on listening to people’s voices extensively and pooling the people’s wisdom when we take action and make decisions.”
Whether or not tolerance can extend to allowing the Internet and other media to nitpick . . . is not just about the need to prevent “language barrier lakes,” but also about ensuring the achievement of people’s democracy. We need not just the tolerance of government leaders, but institutional guarantees as well.

[Posted July 21, 2008, 3:55pm HK]
UPDATE, July 24:
See also Tang Buxi’s article at Blogging for China, July 23, in which he translates yansaihu (言塞湖) as “bottleneck lake.”