Author: David Bandurski

Now Executive Director of the China Media Project, leading the project’s research and partnerships, David originally joined the project in Hong Kong in 2004. He is the author of Dragons in Diamond Village (Penguin), a book of reportage about urbanization and social activism in China, and co-editor of Investigative Journalism in China (HKU Press).

Long live comrade Fang Yonggang! The battle begins over the heart of the 17th Party Congress

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

Over the last two weeks, Fang Yonggang (方永刚) has become a household name in China. He is not a star athlete, not a leading man in the latest Chinese blockbuster. But this obscure naval academy professor is, according to the wave of “public opinion” now boosting him high above the pack, a man to be universally admired and emulated. He is also the latest pawn in play in the great political chessgame leading up to China’s 17th Party Congress in October. [BELOW: Screenshot of Fang Yonggang features page at Sohu.com].

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Nothing at all in the east-is-red media blitz of the Fang Yonggang story suggests it is anything more than a silly throwback to the ideological campaigns of China’s past. Moral, social and political models are of course nothing new in China. Through the 1990s, fresh models and heros, particularly those of moral fortitude, appeared in China’s media every two or three months — a recycled pantheon of caricatured, wooden Lei Fengs.
And certainly, the Communist Party fight song piping up on China Central Television’s special Fang Yonggang page is enough to induce eye-rolling laughter …But not so fast, before you move on to those headliners about Wen Jiabao’s visit with Shinzo Abe, or foreign direct investment in China.
Fang Yonggang was catapulted into the Party’s official news after President Hu Jintao paid a high-profile visit on February 20 to the professor’s hospital bed, where he is still recovering from a life-threatening illness. Hu Jintao reportedly learned of Fang’s situation on January 24 through an internal reference document, and responded by issuing an official memorandum: “We must do everything in our power to save Comrade Fang Yonggang’s life. And we must earnestly draw together and disseminate his advanced achievements.”
What are those “advanced achievements” exactly?
Fang Yonggang has been a contributor to much of President Hu Jintao’s own ideological armory — idea’s like “harmonious society“, the “scientific view of development”, etcetera. So elevating Fang Yonggang — who has the emotive and strategic advantages of being both seriously ill and a member of China’s armed forces — is to elevate the ideological “core values” of the sitting president. It is not an infantile game of perceptions, but in fact goes to the heart of Hu Jintao’s legacy and power.
Which is why Hu’s emotional visit to Fang Yonggang’s bedside …
Entering a sickroom full of fresh flowers, Hu Jintao warmly went forward to the sickbed where Fang Yonggang lay and extended both hands. Fang Yonggang, who had just undergone treatment and was half lying down in bed, tried with all his strength to sit up. Hu Jintao sprang forward, clasping his hands, and said: “Lie down, quickly lie down.”
Sitting at Fang Yonggang’s side, Hu Jintao said affably: “Today is the third day of the new year. I wanted to come especially to see you, to ask after both you and your family in the New Spring!” Fang Yonggang said with emotion: “Thank you, Hu Jintao!” (People’s Daily)
… was followed on April 9 with an announcement by Li Changchun (李长春), the powerful politburo standing committee member in charge of ideology, that Fang Yonggang’s “advanced achievements” should be studied and emulated by everyone.
The import was clear: Hu Jintao’s ideology and policies are the way forward for China, and Party officials should respect this fact as China’s approaches the all-important 17th Party Congress, where the sitting president hopes to exercise a decisive influence over the political report coming out of that plenary session, thereby controlling the Party’s “prevailing consensus” for the next five years.
A debate has lately been brewing just slightly under the surface in China about how exactly the Party should define its direction ideologically coming out of the 17th Party Congress. Hu Jintao, clearly, is blowing his own horn, and there have been indications that he might attempt this October to have his own theories written into the party constitution, a move that would bolster his legacy and solidify his hold on power.
An article by scholar Dong Degang (董德刚) in the March issue of the official magazine Scientific Socialism (科学社会主义) suggested a number of cadres, “including high-level officials and old comrades”, were wary of attempts to modify the party’s constitution at each CCP plenary session, and urged a cautious approach to adding President Hu’s theories to the document.
Dong pointed out that the 15th Party Congress had written Deng Xiaoping Theory into the party constitution, and that the 16th Party Congress in 2002 had thrown Jiang Zemin’s “Three Represents” into the mix. He argued that making amendments every four or five years showed insuffient respect for the party constitution. According to a summary of Dong’s arguments from Hong Kong’s Sing Tao Daily, he said the entry of Jiang’s “Three Represents” into the party constitution had “a definite negative impact by creating a market for the theories of one set of plenary leaders” with the goal of “firming up an individual’s place in history”.
Dong’s comments may underscore exactly what is at stake in the elevation of Fang Yonggang to the status of ideological exemplar. Like former president Jiang Zemin, whose power clique has well-noted frictions with the present top leadership, Hu Jintao may make a bid for the inclusion of his own favored theories in the party constitution.
With the unwitting help of a naval academy professor on his sickbed at the Liberation Army Hospital, Hu Jintao might be able to “kill two eagles with a single arrow” (一箭双雕), as the Chinese say — to showcase his precious theories and get the best of his arch-rival.
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MORE SOURCES:
“Naval academy professor wins president’s praise“, China Daily, April 5, 2007
Sohu.com feature page on Fang Yonggang
China Central Television Web coverage of Fang Yonggang
[Posted by David Bandurski, April 12, 2007, 2:29pm]

China’s Ministry of Health accuses media of foul play in undercover expose on hospital foibles in Hangzhou

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

In the latest showdown over watchdog journalism and media ethics in China, a spokesperson for China’s health ministry yesterday criticized media for “violating professional ethics” and “misleading the public” in a story on medical fraud that ran last month in a number of newspapers and on major Web portals and caused a nationwide sensation. In order to investigate the March story, three reporters for the official Website of China News Service submitted green tea as urine samples at a series of Hangzhou hospitals and were delivered (and of course charged for) seemingly improbable diagnoses. [BELOW: Screenshot of coverage of the tea-for-pee story appearing today at Sina.com].

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The article in question, “Journalists Pass Tea off as Urine and Submit it for Testing”, appeared on March 20 and announced itself as an expose of poor health practices in the face of growing knowledge of citizens’ rights. “As public understanding of health and awareness of the law is on the rise, the expectations placed on hospitals and caregivers by those suffering from illness are also rising steadily,” the article began. “But the limitations of modern medicine and the irresponsible practices of some health workers have made a tough and hot social topic out of tensions between healthcare and the ailing public.” The article continued:
Lately, many people have come forward with complaints about hospitals. A woman in Hangzhou named Chen paid 2,000 yuan [US$260] for a simple visit to the doctor, but was not even given a bill of particulars listing her prescriptions and diagnosis. One dental clinic charged 4,000 yuan for a ceramic tooth that in fact was a fake alloy. Medical personnel who are clearly general practitioners are billed as professors or experts from major Beijing hospitals.
Then came the tantalizing commercial promise: “Over the last two days, reporters from this site worked together with reporters from the ‘News 007’ program of Zhejiang TV’s Qianjiang Metro Channel to report undercover in these hospitals. The conclusions drawn from just this brief investigation are enough to make people shiver all over with fear.”
The report detailed how one reporter had prepared green tea in a glass jar and submitted it for laboratory analysis at Hangzhou’s Shaoshan Qianjiang Hospital. After asking about his general circumstances, a doctor named Cai asked the reporter to submit a urine sample. The reporter poured a bit of the green tea he had prepared into the urine sample cup and submitted at the laboratory. The results came back within five minutes, showing the reporter had an elevated white cell count and possibly suffered from a urinary tract infection. He was prescribed some medicine and asked to come back if things didn’t improve.
The Ministry of Health spokesperson, Mao Qun’an (毛群安), said yesterday that health experts had deemed the China News Service report unprofessional. It had “misled the public, and was not conducive to maintaining a normal healthcare system or building a harmonious relationship between patients and caregivers.”
Mao Qun’an said the health ministry had formed an investigative team to deal with this “incident” and that the team was conducting expert analysis at several major hospitals in Beijing. The team had, like the reporters, submitted tea in place of urine samples and found they returned similar results. But the experts were all in agreement that the laboratory equipment was designed to deal with legitimate samples, and would yield results automatically without necessarily determining there was a problem with the samples themselves.
What would media try next, Mao asked rhetorically. Beer? Soy sauce?
The spokesman emphasized that the ministry’s criticism did not mean they discouraged media supervision of the healthcare system. But the precondition of supervision, he said, should be a “respect for science”, and media should first “understand the nature of medical services”.
Undercover exposes have been a popular form of commercialized journalism in China since the mid 1990s, which saw the advent of such offerings as the 60 Minutes-styled “News Probe”, an investigative news program on China Central Television, and the rise of newspaper exposes focusing mostly on low-level corruption or consumer issues.
State funding for China News Service, China’s number-two official newswire, was progressively pulled beginning in the late 1990s, prompting the service to move — like many media peripheral to the Party’s main propaganda organs (CCTV, People’s Daily and Xinhua News Agency) — toward commercial self-sufficiency.
MORE SOURCES:
Coverage at QQ.com
[Posted by David Bandurski, April 11, 2007, 12:23pm]

Propaganda head Liu Yunshan promotes commercialization of media to strengthen China’s “cultural soft power”

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

As news of a visit to Henan Province by Politburo member and top propaganda official Liu Yunshan was pegged to the top of one of Beijing’s leading Internet portals today, the message, buried deep in a pile of Party shibboleths about the “scientific view of development” and “advanced Socialist culture”, was the need to develop and commercialize culture as an industry in China, thereby increasing the country’s “cultural soft power”. The message was not new, but rather a reiteration of President Hu Jintao’s guiding policy toward the media in China and a reminder of where he stands: squarely on the side of commercialization under Party control [BELOW: Coverage of Liu Yunshan visit to Henan Province tops the newspage today at Sina.com].

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The import of Liu’s three-day survey trip to Henan Province, beginning April 6, was essentially a reaffirmation of the Party’s zuoqiang zuoda, or “making media big and strong”, policy (把新闻传媒做强做大), which debuted in January 2002. The policy promoted the creation of powerful and profitable domestic media conglomerates in China — naturally, under Party control — that were readied for global competition.
The term “making big and strong” had been a legacy of other reforming industries in the 1990s. The media version, first conceived by the Central Propaganda Department, SARFT and GAPP, in August 2001, urged the strengthening of China’s media industry through the building of various media groups, such as newspaper groups, publishing groups, circulation groups and radio and television groups. It also called for bringing dispersed publications into united publishing groups, improving business management, increasing the move toward technology and new media, and adjustment of ownership structures, including possibly introduction of stock ownership, etcetera.
So why raise this issue again through the Liu Yunshan visit? In the news story appearing today, and possibly placed prominently on Sina.com under an official order from censorship authorities, Liu Yunshan was quoted as saying that in the “contemporary world the relationship between economic development and culture is closer than ever, and a nation’s cultural status and the role of culture are more and more obvious, now forming an integral part of overall national strength.” This statement fits perfectly with the notion of zuoqiang zuoda articulated over five years ago, of the link between media commercialization — under a regime of control — and China’s long-term strategic goals.
The very idea of the BIG/STRONG strategy for Chinese media was allied with the notion of message control, the idea that without media groups of proper commercial strength and vitality, China would find it impossible to influence global public opinion. As the official media periodical Chinese Journalist, published by Xinhua News Agency, noted in December 2002: “Faced with competition from international media groups, and faced with a fierce struggle for public opinion on a global scale, China needs to have media groups capable of exerting influence and being competitive in the global opinion struggle.”
The choice of Henan for Liu’s recapitulation of Hu Jintao’s official position on the media is interesting for at least two reasons. Henan has, first of all, been a steady source of unfavorable news in recent years, including continued revelations of its AIDS crisis, the detention of world-renowned Aids activist Gao Yaojie (高耀洁), and repeated safety accidents. Secondly, Henan Party Secretary Xu Guangchun (徐光春), who has served in the province’s top job since 2004, is also a former deputy head of the Central Propaganda Department, a man who understands the Party’s balancing act between commercialization and control.
The direct message for Henan Province in Liu Yunshan’s visit was that while the province has rich “cultural resources”, it needs to do more to push ahead commercial reforms in its own media industry.
[Posted by David Bandurski, April 10, 2007, 4:02pm]

Chinese media and Web users discuss the winners and losers following demolition of China’s “toughest nail house”

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

Just after 7pm Monday, crews went to work destroying China’s “toughest nail house”, an isolated Chongqing residence where homeowners had vowed for days to fight for their rights and stand up to property developers [Chinese coverage]. As demolition work began, the homeowners reportedly reached a relocation agreement with city authorities. Yesterday, Chinese news media and Internet users turned to post-game analysis of the winners and losers in the standoff over the “nail house” and property rights in China — and the count was by no means unanimous. [BELOW: Screenshot of “nail house” special feature page at QQ.com.][“Nail house” destruction photos via ESWN].

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Southern Metropolis Daily, generally home to China’s most outspoken lead editorials (社论), those representing the views of the newspaper, was silent on the “nail house” demolition yesterday, a sign, perhaps, that the outcome was not particularly to the liking of editors there, who might have opted for a more symbolic ending (preservation of a “nail house” monument perhaps?). The newspaper did, however, include a piece by editorial writer and former CMP fellow Yan Lieshan, in which he said he “more or less” agreed with the view that the “nail house” affair was a “major symbolic event following on the heals of the property law”.
“It has already caused people to look carefully and think about relevant laws and regulations, and at the same time has become a living case study in how people should approach the lines between ‘public interest’ and private property, and how they should balance the interest demands of various sides,” Yan Lieshan wrote. “In being managed properly, this provides a good classroom lesson in reaching social consensus.”
In another sign of the growing reverberations between the Web and traditional media in China — a converging of the two opinion environments — Yan Lieshan drew from the comments of one Web user to make a veiled contrast of the “nail house” affair and the crackdown on democracy demonstrations on June 4, 1989: “One week ago, a bold and well-known netizen said to me that she worried that this [“nail house”] affair would snowball into a tragedy in which all sides lost, ‘a replay of the situation back in those years.’ I knew what she was making reference to. At the time, I was rather optimistic, believing that the Chongqing authorities would not lightly resort to strongarm tactics, and that the developer, who had ‘tolerated’ [the situation] for over two years, would not play the bully …”
Yan also offered a passing criticism of foreign media and what he seemed to perceive as their appetite for the story that bleeds. If the “nail house” owners had continued to resist a resolution, he said, if “the Yangs had let emotions run hot, if they had refused to compromise and things led to tragedy, those foreign media who had incited them would not take on any responsibility whatsoever, but in a few days would move on to other news topics like mosquitoes in search of fresh blood.”
An editorial by Yang Zhizhu (杨支柱), an assistant professor at the China Youth University for Political Sciences, argued in Guangzhou’s New Express [article here] that the agreement reached Monday was the “best possible ‘win-win’ situation” for all parties involved. But the editorial stressed that this “win-win” scenario disguised a widespread “relative injustice” (相对不公), namely that the compensation given to other homeowners at the Chongqing development site was unfair, and that by extension the compensation generally given to evicted homeowners across China was inadequate. “It was precisely the universality across the country of this brutal eviction and demolition, of insufficient or delayed compensation, that generated such sympathy and support for the ‘toughest nail house'”, Yang wrote.
Writing for Hangzhou’s Metro Express (都市快报), Xu Xunlei (徐迅雷) said he was “extremely happy” to hear news of the agreement settling the “nail house” affair. “Like the people, we truly don’t wish to see a forced eviction in the face of failure to reach compromise or a peaceful agreement, much less a case of bloodshed,” Xu wrote. “At this time, no matter what the case, we should express our respect for the developer, for the Chongqing government and the courts, and for the media who consistently reported on the affair …”
Internet comments multiplied rapidly yesterday following news of the “nail house” compromise. Many Web users took issue with the suggestion in traditional media that the outcome had been a win-win situation for all sides. But postings were mostly invisible today, suggesting Web portals were being told to keep the topic cool.
“It seems many Websites aren’t allowed to speak [about this] right now? What’s going on? Everything is editorializing about the government’s side,” said one of a handful of responses visible on a Chinese bbs today. “The Chongqing nail house affair underscores how weak and ineffectual the government is,” said the only other remaining post.
As postings on the Web disappeared, perhaps the most enduring legacy left by Internet users was an ironic shift in Chinese semantics. The word “harmonious”, of Hu Jintao’s “harmonious society”, has now yielded a new popular meaning on the Web and in private conversation — “to be harmonized” (被和谐) denotes suppression and containment, so that one, for example, can be “harmonized by the authorities” (被政府和谐). Silenced and resolved.
[Posted by David Bandurski, April 4, 2007, 9:47am]

Chinese blogger “Zola” reports from the scene on Chongqing’s “nail house”

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

March 30 — Before and since The New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof declared in May 2005 that Chinese leaders were “digging the Communist Party’s grave, by giving the Chinese people broadband”, the debate has continued over the possible political impact of the Web in China. Today, Guangdong’s Southern Metropolis Daily offered a profile of “Zola”, a young blogger from Hunan province who seems determined to score a point for new media — and make himself famous in the process. [BELOW: Screenshot fron Zola’s Weblog, with the English tagline, “You never know what you can do till you try”.] [PDF: Southern Metropolis Daily Internet page with story on Zola, in photograph with “nail house” owner Wu Ping].

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“Zola” has been on the scene in the city of Chongqing reporting on the “toughest nail house” since March 28 for his own personal Weblog. His dispatches have included his observations, photographs and interviews with locals. Click here to link to photos of Zola on the scene in Chongqing. The Southern Metropolis Daily article follows:
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“Chinese bloggers also report the story of the ‘toughest nail house’”
March 30, 2007
Southern Metropolis Daily
That photograph distributed on the Web [of the “nail house”] has already become a news event in and of itself. Many journalists have headed for Chongqing. But this time, aside from traditional media, we now have a new kind of reporting form — the blog.
On March 28, the same day that The New York Times offered its second consecutive day of coverage of the “nail house” story, blogger Zhou Shuguang (周曙光) also arrived in Chongqing.
The vegetable-selling blogger
This Hunan youth who has long toyed around on the Web, and while he was invited in November 2005 to take part in an annual Chinese Internet conference for blog essays that showed a unique character, he is not well established on the Web. Clearly, he wants to make a bigger name for himself. He wrote on his personal blog: “Driven by my sensitivity to news and my designs to become famous overnight, on Monday afternoon, after attending my friend Xiong’s wedding feast, I traveled to Loudi City and from there caught the A73 train to Guiyang. I transferred trains at Guiyang, taking the 5608 to Chongqing. In the early morning hours of Wednesday [March 28] I finally rolled into Chongqing like a crazy stone, ready to use my personal blog to report on the “nail house incident” in Yangjiaping in Chongqing’s Jiulongpo District.
“I think this is a good thing for both public and private reasons,” Zhou Shuguang wrote, saying he could, privately speaking, increase traffic to his blog, and publicly do his part to satisfy the curiosity of people paying attention to the story.
When he arrived in Chongqing, he had with him the few hundred yuan he had made selling vegetables. That day sometime past three in the afternoon, he posted his first dispatch about “my inquiries into the ‘nail house incident’ from Chongqing’s Jiulongpo”. He reported on his journey, the people he had met and people’s responses to the nail house incident. “Because of my identity [i.e., not being a licensed reporter] I could only watch from the sidelines, listening to the views of people all around me.” Zhou Shuguang saw the female owner of the nail house, Wu Ping (吴苹).
On the afternoon of the 29th, after he had made the posting “Wu Ping’s opinions twisted by official media” from an Internet bar, Zhou Shuguang returned to the inn where he was staying. His lodging fees were sponsored by a rights defender (维权户) who came from the city of Zhuhai. Before he set out, he had asked on his Weblog for sponsors and received 500 yuan, which he felt was enough to support his expenses in Chongqing.
This Mr. Chen in Zhuhai had faced forced demolition and removal and he went specifically to Chongqing to offer his support for the resident of the “toughest nail house”.
From them [Mr. Chen and others] Zhou Shuguang learned something he found shocking. “Many things we find inconceivable aren’t so because we can’t believe them but because we don’t know about them,” Zhou Shuguang wrote. He wanted to make available through his blog reports things that the traditional media might know but found it inconvenient to report.
His reports have been welcomed by Web users. “My inquiries into the ‘nail house incident’ from Chongqing’s Jiulongpo” has already drawn more than 5,000 Web hits, and his second dispatch received close to 2,000 hits within just a few hours. He has already received more than 20 notices from other Weblogs using his material, and continuous messages of support.
One Web user says: “Comrade Adorable Angry Youth Zola (Zhou Shuguang’s web alias) must really be commended for going by himself to Chongqing as an independent blogger to report on the nail house incident! This will be an important chapter in Chinese grassroots media.”
Another Web user says: “I looked at Zola’s blog today. He’s in Chongqing looking into the nail house story. I think this thing is of epochal significance. That year when Lao Hu Miao (老虎庙) used a mobile phone to take a picture of murder in Beijing’s Wangfujing, that was the first time a Chinese blogger had influence and beat the traditional media to a story, showing that blogs were a kind of media. Unfortunately, later this kind of thing didn’t happen very often, and this has a lot to do with the environment in China.”
Actually, aside from Zhou Shuguang, there have been others who have reported on the “toughest nail house” story as bloggers. A blogger called “The Musings of Tiger” (老虎论道) started reporting on the nail house incident on March 24, and the blogger went twice to the scene, writing about what they saw and felt, and including a substantial number of images.
[The Web portal] Sina.com has a blog that has kept up with this news event, but it has now been shut down without explanation. There are many blogs dealing with the story from a wealth of angles, but perhaps only Zhou Shuguang has traveled from far away especially in order to file blog reports.
[Posted by David Bandurski, March 30, 2007, 4:37pm]

He Xuefeng

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

March 2007 — He Xuefeng is chief editor of the editorial division at Southern Metropolis Daily, a leading Chinese commercial newspaper that has become well-known for its tough investigative reporting and its strong and varied editorial viewpoints. After graduating from Anhui University, He Xuefeng worked as an editor and reporter for Southern Weekend, a leading commercial newspaper in Guangdong province.

China Youth Daily editorial calls for greater professionalism in Chongqing “nail house” reports

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

Chinese authorities recently lifted a prior ban on coverage of the so-called “nail house” in Chongqing, the story of a beleaguered homeowner fighting against forced removal for a development project, and coverage in the Chinese media is on the rise again today. But an editorial from China Youth Daily suggesting media have blown the story out of proportion has dragged the debate in a new direction. [BELOW: Screenshot of “nail house” coverage today at the Website of China’s official Xinhua News Agency].

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The China Youth Daily editorial, written by Lu Gaofeng (陆高峰), suggests that some media have used (or abused) coverage of the “nail house” story in Chongqing to manufacture public sympathy for the “weak” in the bottom-line pursuit of bigger audiences. Lu argues that while officials must face public and media scrutiny “pure-heartedly”, the media need to hold up their end of the bargain, namely to “preserve impartiality and cool-headedness, not playing to the gallery, not misleading the public.” Lu says also that “rational analysis” has been insufficient in coverage of the “nail house” story.
Lu Gaofeng’s editorial should not, in CMP’s view, be read as an official appeal for media self-discipline, but rather as a call for greater professionalism. Unavoidably, though, the editorial raised the hackles of many netizens, who posted responses on major Chinese web portals. “I’d like to ask Lu Gaofeng,” said one Web user at QQ.com, “What is the responsibility of the media? I’ve paid close attention to these ‘nail house’ reports, and some reports are clearly mouthpieces of the government and the development company, and some reports are clearly on the side of the nail house owner. What’s so strange about that? We can’t always demand that media people don’t have their own viewpoints or leanings can we?”
Selected portions of Lu’s editorial follow:
———————
Media Overexcited in “Nail House” Coverage
By Lu Gaofeng (陆高峰)
China Youth Daily, March 29, 2007
. . . Chongqing Mayor Wang Hongju (王鸿举) said, “The ‘nail house’ incident has been frothed up like crazy on the Web, with Web hits surpassing 10 million.” Actually, that number is probably much higher.
While the interests of the masses are no small matter, and while the entanglement between a Chongqing resident facing eviction and a developer and the government may be symbolic as the Property Law has just passed, the media should face questions over its building up of this story about the “nail house”, the fight over removal and demolition and the pursuit of [legal] rights and benefits. Why is it that public opinion [on this story] should lean so decidedly to one side? Why can’t the public agree with the court’s judgement of “removal and demolition”, or the Chongqing mayor’s assertion that the resident is asking for unreasonable compensation? To a large degree it is because the media has used it ability to set the agenda and create public opinion to manufacture sympathy in its audience for the “weak” [i.e., the “underdog”].
The mass media possess the natural advantage of being able to enlarge events and public opinion. According to the views of a number of communication scholars in the West, mass media are structures of re-creation that “mimic their environment” (大众媒介是从事“拟态环境”再生产的机构). In many situations, the mimicked environments [of mass media] are not entirely accurate reflections of the objective environment, but are new “constructions” of media organizations and disseminators made according to their particular needs and interests. Some have compared this re-creative and agenda-setting function of the media to a spotlight or an amplifier — enlarging events and public opinion, drawing the attention and concern of the public, or even working as a distorting mirror — twisting or changing [things] according to the needs of the disseminator.
. . . What is regrettable is that in reports on the “nail house” we see only the extreme “focus” and “magnification” of this event by the media, their excessive “publicizing” of the issue of rights and benefits, to the point that some have even made this “removal row” into their own personal performances, seeking to win the eyeballs of the audience through a “feast” of sympathy. We seldom see rational analysis of this story from the media, or impartial reporting, or any attempt to quell [or soften] the swelling of noise [surrounding the story].
As we explore the question of good relations between media and officials, there are two points we cannot lose sight of. The first is that government offices should face media scrutiny (“supervision by public opinion”) with an attitude of public service, not using their power to keep others down, accepting criticism pure-heartedly. The second is the media’s own social responsibility, to preserve impartiality and cool-headedness, not playing to the gallery, not misleading the public.
MORE SOURCES:
“We will not be moved: one family against the developers“, The Guardian, March 24, 2007
“In China, Fight Over Development Creates a Star“, March 24, 2007
“Property rights law fight hits home in China“, Associated Press, March 28, 2007
“Nailing Down a Settlement“, TIME China Blog, March 28, 2007
[Posted by David Bandurski, March 29, 2007, 12:50pm]

Chinese documentary film festival “postponed” until further notice

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

According to a CMP source, China’s leading venue for the screening of independent documentary films has been “postponed” under an order from authorities in Kunming, the capital of China’s Yunnan province. The Yunnan Multi Culture Visual Fest, or YunFest, which has been held for three years running, was scheduled to go ahead from April 6-12 in Kunming, but an e-mail from the festival’s executive committee today said they had been notified of the postponement. [BELOW: Screenshot of e-mail from YunFest 2007 executive committee notifying festival participants of the event’s postponement/Sender’s e-mail and mobile blocked].

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In the e-mail announcement, YunFest planners said they were reaching “relevant authorities” (有关部门) concerning the move. CMP has not yet been able to confirm the reasons for the postponement, but the edgy film festival, which generally features a range of independently-produced documentaries touching on sensitive social issues, might be facing more intense political pressure as China’s 17th Party Congress approaches.
The postponement announcement urged participants to hold off on travel plans and wait for further word. The text is translated below:
Dear respected selected contest participant for the 2007 YunFest:
The YunFest committee has received notice that: “The Yunnan Multi Culture Visual Fest 2007” event has been postponed.
We are urgently getting in touch with relevant authorities, and we hope that we may be able to go forward as planned.
Would everyone please for the time being not purchase airline or bus tickets and keep a close eye on the YunFest Website: www.yunfest.org . Once we have received a definite answer we will release information at the earliest possible moment.
YunFest’s executive committee apologizes for any inconvenience this has caused.
Thank you everyone for your attention and support!
YunFest Executive Committee
March 26, 2007
MORE SOURCES:
About YunFest
[Posted by David Bandurski, March 27, 2007, 6:23pm]

China Youth Daily: China needs non-state journalism “communities” to ensure a professional press

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

Cases like the beating death of reporter Lan Chengzhang earlier this year, and the controversy surrounding the Foxconn Case in August 2006, have underscored the growing problem of media ethics and press corruption in China. A crucial point often overlooked in coverage of this issue is the relationship between problems in the Chinese media and Party press controls [See “China’s Yellow Journalism“, FEER, June 2006]. One of the lynchpin questions in the debate over ethical journalism in China is whether the professional environment for journalism can be improved without a radical rethink of the media’s role in Chinese society (which is also a fundamental question about political reform). [BELOW: Screenshot of online “Youth Topics” section of today’s China Youth Daily, with article on journalistic professionalism].

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An editorial in today’s China Youth Daily, a newspaper published by the China Communist Youth League, touches on the institutional roots of poor media professionalism in China. The editorial, written by Chen Jibing (陈季冰), deputy editor of the Oriental Morning Post, one of Shanghai’s leading commercial newspapers, argues that the failure to establish “effective professional norms” in many sectors in China, including media, results from lack of “the necessary social ‘communities’ (共同体)”.
The article — “Oriental Morning Post deputy editor Chen Jibing: Only with self-discipline and regulation can there be freedom of speech” — looks at first glance like your typical media self-confession about the need for reporters to better behave and bear in mind their own responsibility to Chinese society:
… If we look more deeply, isn’t the media’s weak self-discipline just as serious a defect [as tight government control]? The two [factors] seem interconnected — because media don’t adequately self-discipline, the government controls more strictly; and because the government controls more strictly the media lack self-discipline even more. The precondition of freedom is rule of law. In the same way, journalistic norms (新闻规范) are the precondition of freedom of speech. Without a set of journalistic norms, even if the government is hands off and doesn’t exercise control, we can’t possibly achieve true freedom of speech.
But the editorial moves directly into a discussion of government regulation in “Western countries”, arguing that Western societies more effectively regulate various sectors (including professional sports, for example) through a combination of weak government and strong civil society (“小（弱）政府、大（强）社会”的格局). The article implies that state-controlled industry associations like the All-China Journalists Association should give way to more independent professional communities. The argument follows:
The most basic reason why we cannot establish effective “norms” in many sectors is that we lack the necessary social “communities”. Academic freedom needs to be supported by an “academic community”, and journalistic norms need to be supported by a “media community”. Of course, these sorts of communities are different from the government in that they are not backed up by legal force (the power to restrain under the law). Nevertheless, anyone who challenges the authority of the community will automatically lose their credentials as a community member, and owing to the internal operation of mutual acknowledgement and censure within the community, the community works as a strong binding force.
To give an example, classic cases of this kind of community are European football associations (欧洲的足球协会) [SEE UEFA], in which membership is entirely voluntary but which strongly bind registered players. Why do European players not dare commit ethics violations (打假球)? Because they know that if they are found out, or even cast into doubt, their careers are jeopardized, and even if they make the rounds all over Europe there’s not a single club that would dare sign a contract with them. Moreover, if the football association drops a player’s credentials, television advertisers will no longer do business with him. So why is it that [in China] we have a football association colored with state power (浓厚的官方色彩的足协) and yet cannot accomplish as much [as UEFA]? It’s because despite the fact that the government can leverage the force of the law, it cannot compel fans to buy tickets and watch matches. Moreover, when any industry association is connected with the state, its leaders tend to absorb themselves with their superiors rather than the healthy operation of the market.
What I’m arguing is that journalistic norms are the precondition for freedom of speech, and the creation and protection of journalistic norms relies upon the emergence of a “media community”. I don’t mean that we should give the work of propaganda offices entirely over to a news media association. And I’m not saying the government should not control [the media] from here on out. What I’m saying is that because the functions and resources of the government and industry communities are different, they should have different spheres of management. In light of China’s national realities, propaganda authorities should be responsible for questions of guidance in the ideological realm of media. Media professional associations should be charged with ordering market competition, professional principles for journalists and other questions belonging to the “social” sphere. Once this pattern of assuming respective roles and working together emerges, “freedom” and “regulation” will complement one another.
MORE SOURCES:
Chen Jibing’s personal Weblog
“Unsteady Taiwanese steps, often in the wrong direction“, Ethical Corporation, March 8, 2007
“Foxconn sues reporters over iPod story“, MacNN, August 29, 2006
“Foxconn sues newspaper”, ESWN, August 26, 2006
“The FoxConn-First Financial Daily Case Goes National/Global“, ESWN, August 28, 2006
“Western Media Begins Foxconn Coverage“, ESWN, August 29, 2006
“Some differing views of Foxconn“, Danwei.org, August 30, 2006
“Taboo term ‘press freedom’ unshelved for domestic Chinese coverage of the Foxconn lawsuit“, CMP, August 30, 2006
“China media seen as corrupt, but experts blame communist controls for skewing system“, AP, January 31, 2007
“Killing Puts Focus on Corruption in Chinese News Media” (NOTE: report contains several factual inaccuracies, including date of Lan Chengzhang’s death), The New York Times, January 31, 2006
[Posted by David Bandurski, March 27, 2007, 2:30pm]

Editorial criticizes Chinese officials and media for poisoning the Olympic spirit with nationalism

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

southern-metropolis-daily_march-19_2007.pdf

Much Chinese media coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics has focused on national pride and the importance of the games in building up China’s international image. But a recent editorial in Southern Metropolis Daily argues that China’s well-publicized appetite for Olympic gold has become a kind of Midas touch, spoiling the spirit of friendship and harmony that the Games have come to symbolize. [BELOW: March 19 editorial in Southern Metropolis Daily discusses the spirit of the Olympic Games/See also PDF above].

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The writer of the Southern Metropolis Daily editorial, Jing Kaixuan (景凯旋), suggests that China needs to remove the taint of central planning from its approach to athletics and focus more on sports as a way of life, also seeking to improve public access to sports facilities and raise the overall fitness of people across the country.
Jing’s comments follow a wave of news about China’s 2008 Olympic hopes, and discussions of where China’s priorities should lie. Coverage has been driven in part over the last week by comments from a representative to the recent NPC meetings in Beijing, who was quoted by Chinese media as saying that “China will win the most medals at the Olympics, or at least the most gold medals.”
The editorial follows in full:
———————-
“Gold medals do not equal the Olympic spirit”
By Jing Kaixuan (景凯旋)
Southern Metropolis Daily
March 19, 2007
I’m a definite sports fan. Any time there’s a decent match to watch, I’m ready to enjoy it. But over these last few years I’ve watched less and less [sports on] television, because the propagandizing by some media has already departed from the Olympic spirit, spoiling the enjoyment to be found in sports. So when I heard the presentations from writer Wang Meng (王蒙) and athlete Deng Yaping (邓亚萍) at the [recent] two meetings [sessions of the NPC and CPPCC] I felt they were clear-headed and rational people. Happening to coincide [in their sentiments], they suggested that the political significance of sports events should not be played up, and that the drumbeating [within China] about being the top medal winner at the [Beijing 2008] Olympic Games has already damaged China’s image.
In my view, sports events manifest the power and beauty of humanity, and their emphasis is on the spirit of the games, not the warring of nationalities. Of course, when national flags are raised and national anthems pipe up at contemporary international sports events, this can come with a bit of patriotic pride. But unlike other areas, sports matches are marked with high degree of common cultural understanding, and the five-circled [Olympic] flag represents the unity, friendship and harmony (和谐) of humankind. The Olympic spirit is about universality, not about national differences, and it should be free particularly of political overtones. During the Cold War, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, Western nations, led by the United States, boycotted the Moscow Olympics, and yet some athletes competed in their own names, waving the Olympic flag as they participated in the opening ceremony. This did not signal their support for Soviet politics, but rather [their conviction] that sports and politics should not be interlocked. I believe it is athletes like this, and not politicians, who evince the true spirit of athletic games.
Sports competitions should not be politicized also because they represent the most basic idea of equality … If we ratchet up the political significance of sports, and use nationalism to patch up ideological gaps, then this translates into the aberrant idea that “victory is patriotism and defeat is treasonable.” You cannot suppose logic of this kind is a merely fanciful – this was exactly what Saddam Hussein’s son Uday did when the Iraqi soccer team lost international matches, bringing out the whip after [the athletes] returned home.
Very few countries in the contemporary world are like us, taking sports matches and lending to them a kind of grave nationalistic import, so that only the winning of gold medals has importance, and silver and bronze medals are considered defeat. We often see that when foreign athletes win second and third place medals, their faces express their joy, but Chinese athletes by contrast wear looks of discouragement. Under pressure to win gold medals, even if these athletes do feel joy at winning, they do not dare show it. Are the tears shed by these champions tears shed under pressure, or tears shed through personal struggle? This is not the most important thing. In [our] media propagandizing, of course all tears are tears of fervent nationalism.
Under such a climate, the Olympic spirit has already been twisted. [Chinese] coaches and athletes seldom show bearing and dignity. Win a competition and this is the glory of race. Lose a competition and we blame the machinations of the other side. Some people say this is the coaches or athletes making a stink out of personal character. But if they are acting this way just for themselves and not out of nationalistic spirit, then what will the result be? Everyone in the world is clear about this. Some [Chinese] sports officials talk just as overbearingly overseas as they do within China. For example, during an open badminton tournament in Germany recently, a Chinese athlete dropped out of a match due to illness. This caused dissatisfaction in the [tournament’s] executive committee [which wondered about the reason for the withdrawal]. It was a matter that could easily be explained [owing to the player’s illness], but a [Chinese] official blamed the German peoples’ lack of understanding of the game, saying that German’s were jealous of the achievements of the Chinese team. Who would believe such an assertion, saying Germans were jealous over badminton? This could only cause others to believe that you suffered from lack of character.
All of this owes to a “system of unified national struggle” (举国体制) and to “Olympic strategizing” (奥运战略). In today’s market economy, the sports world [in China] still suffers from hangovers from the planned economy, and this is unsuited to the tenets of reform. These last few years, a number of sports officials and media have turned athletic sports into a grand national objective, relying on the support of the whole nation, turning national resources to the manufacture of gold medals, rolling tax revenues into this [sports] industry. In the name of winning glory for the nation, it seems anything can be done. But no one has ever stepped forward to explain exactly how much tax money must be spent for China to win a single gold medal, and seldom do people ask, when corruption exists in every industry — are sports officials really that clean? In all these cases of [athletes] using stimulants and match rigging, do we honestly think it all comes down to the personal foibles of the referees, coaches and athletes? And where has all that money for the sports lottery been applied?
Regardless of how many gold medals China wins in the Olympic Games, this is ultimately less important [for average Chinese] than eating well (大不过以食为天的民生), less meaningful than the idea of a “harmonious world”, and less important than national fitness. In countries with truly strong sports cultures, the people regard athletics as a way of life. But we have invested pathetically little in the health and fitness of our national citizens, and modern athletic equipment is very rarely made available to ordinary people. People generally speaking do not have public areas where they can exercise, and our health and fitness indicators are lower than in other countries. We simply go off to the hospital when we’re sick, and this exacerbates already strong pressures on our healthcare system, contributing to social instability. The upshot of emphasizing gold medals and not focusing on people is that neither our hearts nor our bodies can be sound.
(The author is a professor at Nanjing University)
MORE SOURCES:
“Don’t raise up the China as top gold medal winner theory: Think about it carefully” (Chinese), Qianlong.com, March 16, 2007
“China’s gold medalist Deng calls for Olympics-driven soft power improvement“, Xinhua News Agency, March 12, 2007
[Posted by David Bandurski, March 21, 2007, 2:01pm]

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