If there’s one message to be taken away from the January 23 edition of Beijing Daily, the mouthpiece of top city leaders in China’s capital, it’s that Party newspapers can be feisty too. More than a week after top publishing officials in China announced a nationwide ban on eight books, drawing domestic and international criticism, Beijing Daily slipped an excerpt from one of those books, The Other Stories of History, by former People’s Daily journalist Yuan Ying (袁鹰), into a prominent place on its inner pages. [IMAGE: Page 15 of Beijing Daily, January 23, with exerpt (at top) of Yuan Ying’s recently-banned book/byline marked in RED].

The particular essay chosen by Beijing Daily, in which Yuan Ying discusses his various pen names of the past, is not itself sensitive. But the “Yuan Ying” byline is clear, and clearly a shot across the bow of officials at the General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP), particularly deputy director Wu Shulin (邬书林).
CMP has written repeatedly about the way commercial newspapers (generally spin-offs of provincial and city-level party newspapers) push the envelope on various issues, both in news coverage and editorials. This latest case at Beijing Daily, a newspaper strictly controlled by top city leaders in Beijing, is a reminder of the complexity of China’s media environment.
Yuan Ying’s latest collection of essays, The Other Stories of History: My Days at the Supplement Division of People’s Daily (风云侧记 — 我在人民日报副刊的岁月), looks back with a level head on three decades of turmoil facing intellectuals in China, from the Anti-Rightist Movement of 1957 to the Cultural Revolution. While the book deals with many tragic episodes top Chinese leaders faced head-on in the early 1980s, Wu Shulin recently accused the book of “revealing state secrets”.
More Sources:
“Book Ban Violates My Rights, Says Author”, SCMP, January 20, 2007
“Denial of the Past Will Impede China’s Future“, SCMP, January 19, 2007
[Posted by David Bandurski, January 25, 4:37pm]

China Economic Times, a newspaper published by the Development Research Center of the State Council, published a lengthy story yesterday on the Lan Chengzhang case by former CMP fellow Wang Keqin, one of China’s leading investigative reporters. Wang Keqin’s report is the most thorough to appear so far on the controversial case, in which Lan, who was working as a reporter for China Trade News, was attacked while reportedly working on a story about an illegal mine in Shanxi province. The case has drawn strong attention from the Chinese public, top officials and domestic and foreign media since the first report appeared in Southern Metropolis Daily on January 16. (Kudos to Hong Kong blogger Roland Soong for translating the entire Wang Keqin report).
More on Wang Keqin and his work is available through the CMP site, including a case study on one of Wang’s earlier reports on corruption in Beijing’s taxi industry.
[Posted by David Bandurski, January 25, 2007, 12:47pm]

City law-enforcement officials in Datong, Shanxi Province, announced at a press conference yesterday that they had made a breakthrough in the case of murdered reporter Lan Chengzhang, taking seven suspects into custody. Datong police launched a probe into the reporter’s murder under pressure from national and provincial officials, who reportedly ordered an investigation be carried out “swiftly”. [More coverage translated at ESWN]. [BELOW: Screen capture of news coverage on Lan Chengzhang investigation, Sina.com].

A report from China News Service, available through major Web portals, said that after the incident happened “central, provincial and city leaders gave the case top priority”.
“CCP General Secretary Hu Jintao (胡锦涛), CCP Politburo Standing Committee Member Li Changchun (李长春), CCP Politburo Committee Member … Public Security Bureau Chief Zhou Yongkang (周永康), and Public Security Bureau Vice Chief Bai Jingfu (白景富) issued in succession formal instructions calling for a swift determination of the situation [in the Lan Chengzhang case] and the release of a report at the earliest possible moment”, the China News Service report said, noting that provincial officials had issued similar orders.
China’s domestic media have continued to report heavily on the Lan Chengzhang case since news broke in Southern Metropolis Daily on January 16. The story has prompted some newspapers to call for better protections for journalists in China.
In a January 22 editorial, Kunming’s Spring City Times used the Lan Chengchang story and other recent media stories, including a sketchy new watchdog journalism prize in Hunan province and watchdog journalism-related language in an anti-corruption legislation in Zhengzhou, to discuss the need for “specific laws” protecting the press:
These three [abovementioned] events, taken together, reveal a “love-hate” dynamic in the relationship between the government and news media in China, like that between “lovers”.
In a democratic society, the right of the people to monitor the government is in large part realized through the news media. If this principle is carried out [in deed], the relationship between the media and government should be one of monitor and monitored. Naturally, to the extent the media is an industry, the government has a duty to regulate it. Here we glimpse the [seemingly] contradictory relationship in which [the media and government] are both united and oppositional.
No matter what country’s mainstream media, the emphasis is on the interests of the nation and the people, and this means that in most instances the goals of media and government are one and the same. Their relationship should be one of mutual reliance and counter-valence, maintaining a state of balance. If one side takes pains to upset this balance, this will cause significant damage to both sides — during last year’s Typhoon “Saomei” in Fujian Province, reported numbers of dead showed considerable variance among the people because news media were strictly controlled [by local Party officials] …
For the media, having an atmosphere suited to watchdog journalism is much more meaningful than watchdog journalism prizes of any kind. For Zhejiang Province to emphasize the media’s right to conduct watchdog journalism through local legislation is progress. But while in a modern democratic society the fact that the “news media carry out watchdog journalism in accordance with the law … on government employees as they perform their official duties” is common knowledge, we still lack specific laws for [protecting] the exercising [of watchdog journalism], and when the rubber meets the road it is hard to ensure journalists are free to report.
The realization of watchdog journalism depends on good-faith interaction between media and the government. Officials have no need for teeth-grinding hate of the press, nor must they love them wholeheartedly.
[Posted by David Bandurski, January 24, 2007, 4:36pm]

Chinese broadcast officials announced over the weekend that only television dramas cleaving to the Party’s “main theme” would air during prime time this year. The measure, announced under the banner of China’s self-proclaimed “Year of Quality Television Dramas”, masks a campaign to keep threatening content out of prime-time television during what Party leaders regard as an especially sensitive year, marking the 50-year anniversary of the Anti-Rightist Movement and the start of the crucial 17th Party Congress. [Below: Headline in Jinghua Times announces the new SARFT regulations].

The language “carry forward the main theme” (弘扬主旋律) is an unambiguous Communist Party buzzword, encapsulating the notions of Party control, the supremacy of Marxism, the central position of heroic Party figures, and other key concepts, in an analogy to orchestral music. In recent years, the idea of the “main theme” has persisted as a term of some importance in China, complemented under commercialization with the notion of “promoting pluralism”. In television programming, the marriage of the two concepts suggests a CCP-style political correctness enlivened with themes more relevant to viewers — love stories, emotional turmoil, etc.
During a January 20 meeting, top leaders from the State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT) announced that “beginning next month and for a period lasting at least eight months” — stretching through the Party Congress in October — satellite television stations in China would “without exception” broadcast “main theme television dramas” (主旋律电视剧).[Coverage from Jinghua Times via Sina.com].
Characterizing the new regulations as an effort to emphasize quality over quantity, SARFT officials said a 2003 relaxation of restrictions on television production had brought a flood of low-quality content into the industry. “This is a special year for all television programming,” said SARFT Deputy Director Wang Weiping (王卫平), quoted in Jinghua Times today. “In order to create good conditions and a favorable environment, SARFT declares that: from February and lasting for a period of eight months, all satellite channels will without exception broadcast main theme television dramas”.
Wang said SARFT had established a four-tier inspection and approval system for television dramas, in which they would first be submitted to the provincial office of SARFT and from there go to provincial propaganda authorities, the national SARFT office and finally to the Central Propaganda Department.
The move drew scorn and sarcasm from Chinese Web users.
“What is main theme television?” one user asked on the popular Chinese Web portal Sina.com. “Is it singing the praises of officials and their achievements? Or is it about things relevant to people’s lives, getting rid of corruption, fighting dirty power?”
Another Web user pointedly suggested China should share its policies with the world: “Shouldn’t we have the United Nations issue a decision: We cannot let Chinese people enjoy this happy [policy] on their own — the whole world must broadcast China’s main theme television? That would make it really fantastic!”
Many users hearkened back to the Leftist propaganda classics of the Cultural Revolution, suggesting bitingly that there was no reason for new productions if these were available: “It’s good enough just to re-air the eight exemplary plays [of the Cultural Revolution]. That’ll be flavorful enough. Why film new television dramas? I agree [with this policy].” And: “I support the State Administration of Radio Film and Television! It’s enough if we just film a few exemplary films each year. That way we won’t need to spend so much money!”
In a country where the popularity of video file-sharing has taken off in recent months, another Web user gave a verbal shrug, suggesting everyone should scrap their televisions and go with online broadcasts: “I’d like to ask — do I have the right during prime time to not, not, not to watch TV? I’d like to ask — the ‘main theme’ television you are talking about, if it is ‘main’, why doesn’t it have the guts to compete on level ground with other TV programs, but instead has to make use of monopoly power? …You guys go ahead with your making of regulations and carrying them out — you have a monopoly after all! As for myself, my prime time comes a bit later. It’s not affected. Ha ha! … From now on, those who set up new homes shouldn’t bother buying televisions. If you have a computer, there no sense in having a TV”.
[Posted by David Bandurski, January 22, 2007, 4:21pm]

A decision by publishing censors in China to ban eight books has angered many Chinese and brought a wave of online criticism, demonstrating again the power of the Internet as a form of expression in China.
Controversy over the decision to ban the eight books [list from SCMP], announced last week by Wu Shulin (邬书林), deputy director of the General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP), comes on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the party’s shutdown of the Freezing Point supplement of China Youth Daily newspaper. [Summary of book ban by Danwei.org].
As was the case in the Freezing Point episode last year, in which intellectuals, officials and industry colleagues came to the supplement’s defense via the Web, resulting in its eventual re-launch, a number of prominent figures have stepped forward to criticize this most recent high-profile censorship case. Zhang Yihe (章诒和), the well-known author of one of the banned works and a recipient of the 2004 Freedom to Write Award from the Independent Chinese PEN Center (ICPC), has pledged in an open statement to defend her work to the end: “When my last two books were killed, I responded that I ‘didn’t care’ … This time, I do care, I care very much! Mr. Wu, let me tell you: I’ll face this gravely illegal behavior of yours with my life. Zhu Yingtai [a story character] gave her life to protect her love. I am prepared to give my life to protect my work” [Full translation of statement from ESWN].
On a popular Chinese bulletin board site, Zhang’s statement was introduced by Beijing lawyer and former CMP fellow Pu Zhiqiang (浦志强), who has served as defense counsel for a number of high-profile press freedom cases in China. Pu Zhiqiang also criticized Wu Shulin in a blog entry.
But while the Freezing Point episode concerned actions taken by the Party against news media via the Central Propaganda Department, opposition to the book ban is now directed toward a government office under the State Council, China’s highest administrative authority. Critics, including Zhang Yihe, say the actions of GAPP go against the stated goals of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and the State Council. As Zhang Yihe wrote: “Mr. Wu, what camp to you belong to? Not long ago, Premier Wen Jiabao said publicly that he hoped and demanded that Chinese writers and artists could speak the truth … GAPP is a subordinate office of the national government, under the State Council. Is this [GAPP action] not going directly against the State Council?”
The book ban controversy is also backgrounded by another upcoming anniversary — the fiftieth anniversary of the Anti-Rightist Campaign, launched in July 1957. Reference to this historical event, in which tens of thousands were purged as “rightist” elements critical of the policies of Mao Zedong, is apropos because the language of the GAPP ban targets not just content deemed unacceptable, but the writers themselves. GAPP Deputy Director Wu Shulin used the words “this person” to refer to Zhang Yihe in particular. Which is why Zhang Yihe, the daughter of a prominent “rightist” purged in 1957, alludes to factionalism in her public statement: “I understand that in Mr. Wu’s eyes, Zhang Yihe is a rightist. OK, let’s say I am a rightist. I’d like to ask: Isn’t a rightist a citizen [with a constitutional right to free speech/Chapter II, Article 25] all the same?”.
On top of this, the book ban controversy underscores the sometimes puzzling lack of uniformity in policy decisions and their execution that marks a China in transition. While the GAPP ban was issued on January 11, the January 14 edition of the official People’s Daily included a brief item about one of the books on the list, Yuan Ying’s (袁鹰) memoir titled Other Stories of History: My Days at the Supplements Division of the People’s Daily (风云侧记:我在人民日报副刊的岁月). Reviews of other books on the list, including Zhang Yihe’s, have appeared in various newspapers since the GAPP ban.
Web postings on the GAPP book ban multiplied at a rapid rate over the weekend on China’s KDnet. While postings were progressively deleted by Web censors — leaving the message: “This user’s post has already been removed by managers” — thousands of Web users voiced their opinions on the government move and shared information about the writers whose work was targeted.
A user called “No Tolerance” wrote: “I support the efforts of Zhang Yihe and the others to defend their rights”. Another, “guangli203”, re-posted Zhang Yihe’s pledge to stand up to GAPP Deputy Director Wu Shulin: “What earth-shaking words,” they wrote. “I support them!”
A user called “Northern Sky” wrote: “I support Zhang’s efforts to take action against them [in the GAPP]. Take action against them? Where does one go to take action against them? The United Nations?”
Wrote user “Tao Tie”: “Even a book that simply describes the pasts of Beijing Opera stars gets banned. The General Administration of Press and Publications is even stricter than during the Republican Era [under the Kuomintang] — is this what is meant by [Hu Jintao’s] Harmonious Society?”
One user, “Gong Buo”, included in “Post #8” a list of works by Zhang Yihe, to which another user subsequently responded: “Please go quickly and fill your prescription [buy books] according to Post #8. Supplies are limited!”
More Links:
“History Books Get the Axe“, Danwei.org, January 19, 2007
[Posted by David Bandurski, January 22, 2007, 1:59pm]

January 17 – The beating death of China Trade News reporter Lan Chengzhang (兰成长) sparked a controversy in China over press safety and media corruption as local party officials in Datong, Shanxi Province (where the reporter was killed), insisted Lan was a “fake” reporter out to extort money from local coalmines, and representatives from China Trade News confirmed they hired Lan on a provisional basis. [Coverage from ESWN here and here].
January 17 — Thousands of Chinese web users responded as Guangzhou’s top law-enforcement official, Zhang Guifang (张桂芳), blasted the media as the primary source of a worsening sense of public safety in the city. By late afternoon, Web censors were working to contain the story, and thousands of postings suddenly vanished from one major Web portal.
January 22 – A decision by publishing censors in China to ban eight books angered many Chinese and brought a wave of online criticism, demonstrating again the power of the Internet as a form of expression in China. The controversy came on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the party’s shutdown of the Freezing Point supplement of China Youth Daily newspaper. As was the case in the Freezing Point episode in 2006, in which intellectuals, officials and industry colleagues came to the supplement’s defense via the Web, resulting in its eventual re-launch, a number of prominent figures stepped forward to criticize the book ban.
January 22 — Rui Chengang, a well-known anchor at China Central Television, drew international attention as he wrote a criticism on his personal Weblog about the presence of a Starbuck’s coffee in the Forbidden City. [More coverage from ESWN]. [Coverage from IHT]. [Coverage from Shanghai Daily].
January 22 — Chinese broadcast officials announced that only television dramas cleaving to the Party’s “main theme” would air during prime time this year. The measure, announced under the banner of China’s self-proclaimed “Year of Quality Television Dramas”, masked a campaign to keep threatening content out of prime-time television during what Party leaders regard as an especially sensitive year, marking the 50-year anniversary of the Anti-Rightist Movement and the start of the crucial 17th Party Congress. The language “carry forward the main theme” (弘扬主旋律) was an unambiguous Communist Party buzzword, encapsulating the notions of Party control, the supremacy of Marxism, the central position of heroic Party figures, and other key concepts, in an analogy to orchestral music. In recent years, the idea of the “main theme” has persisted as a term of some importance in China, complemented under commercialization with the notion of “promoting pluralism”. In television programming, the marriage of the two concepts suggests a CCP-style political correctness enlivened with themes more relevant to viewers — love stories, emotional turmoil, etc. Characterizing the new regulations as an effort to emphasize quality over quantity, SARFT officials said a 2003 relaxation of restrictions on television production had brought a flood of low-quality content into the industry.

China’s top administrative authority, the State Council, passed “in principle” yesterday the long-awaited ordinance on information disclosure [中华人民共和国政府信息公开条例（草案)], which some experts believe could give the public and media better access to a whole range of government information.
The ordinance, which could pave the way for a more powerful law on information disclosure, has been in the works since the National People’s Congress submitted a proposal for creation of a draft in March 2006. The draft was to make its debut by the end of last year, but was reportedly held up by internal wrangling between top government officials and elements within the propaganda apparatus, and many local officials, who felt it might give the media too much power.
A number of local governments in China, including Shanghai, Guangzhou and Zhengzhou, have come out with their own disclosure ordinances over the last few years. Isolated cases of journalists or citizens attempting to use these regulations to access government information have been unsuccessful, but some experts believe the national ordinance, once it takes effect, could put local governments under greater pressure to comply.
[Posted by David Bandurski, January 18, 2007, 12:28pm]

Guangdong’s Southern Metropolis Daily was silent today on Guangzhou’s top law-enforcement official, Zhang Guifang (张桂芳), the day after its simple news report on the official’s unpopular suggestion that media were the cause of worsening public safety in the city drew sharp criticism from Chinese Internet users. Other media from across China expressed disapproval of Zhang Guifang’s comments.
Zhang, secretary of Guangzhou’s Politics and Law Committee, said on Tuesday that while “the media and information industry in Guangzhou has played a major role in economic development, it has rapidly worsened some public safety issues”. Southern Metropolis Daily included the comments in a news story that ran yesterday on the popular Beijing-based Web portal Sina.com and drew biting comments from readers. CMP has now learned that postings for the Zhang Guifang story were being deleted by the thousands throughout the day yesterday.
Given Southern Metropolis Daily‘s characteristic outspokenness, it is unusual for the newspaper to stay mum on what is clearly a popular news topic today. While Zhang Guifang is a high-level official in Guangzhou, the newspaper, as a spinoff of Guangdong’s official Nanfang Daily, is controlled by top party officials in the province, and enjoys their protection. So what is going on here? The likely explanation is that, seeing how much noise the Zhang Guifang story was getting yesterday, top editors at Southern Metropolis Daily decided to lay low and let the storm blow over. As CMP noted yesterday, the politics between Zhang Guifang and top provincial leaders, particularly Party Secretary Zhang Dejiang, are reportedly somewhat disharmonious. Top leaders in Guangdong are likely to find the press generated by Zhang Guifang’s comments highly embarrassing.
Newspapers outside the bureaucratic bickering of Guangdong did seize on Zhang Guifang’s comments today. Beijing Youth Daily, a newspaper run by the Beijing chapter of the Chinese Communist Youth League, ran a commentary by a member of the Chinese military named Guo Songmin (郭松民) — further attesting to the growing diversity of editorial opinion in the Chinese press — that expressed some sympathy with Zhang’s views, but felt nevertheless that they were misguided:

I understand Secretary Zhang’s speech and that he was not actually arguing that the media had worsened the public safety situation (for example, increases in the actual crime rate), but rather that the media had affected the perception of city residents and outsiders of the safety situation in Guangzhou. If this was his purpose, I believe there was actually no need for Secretary Zhang to blame the media. Media reports are secondary. If there are bubbles and those bubbles are broken, there is still water and not merely air. Media reports might affect the perception of the safety situation in Guangzhou among residents and outsiders, but objectively speaking they are advantageous to the improvement of public safety in Guangzhou.
More, said the writer, should be done to ensure media could cooperate fully in the task of improving public safety:
Summing up, no matter how you look at it, media are all constructive forces in pushing for the improvement of public safety. Officials responsible for coordinating and managing public safety should think more about how to work together with the media, how to help the media in mobilizing public participation and improving the relevant mechanisms. The media should not be regarded as inhibiting forces to be pushed off into the margins. Here we have, in fact, the proper attitude toward the media and its relationship to the handling of public safety.
An editorial in today’s Shanghai Securities News related Zhang Guifang’s comments to the issue of “watchdog journalism”, which has been much discussed in the Chinese media of late. It added to the mix a number of recent media-related news stories, including the beating death of Lan Chengzhang and recent comments from the director of Guangzhou’s Agricultural Standards and Inspection Center, Peng Zongzhi (彭聪直), who said concerns about food safety were the “media’s error”:
　　
If ones says these denials of the utility of watchdog journalism are merely verbal statements, well then, there is the issue of a number of areas passing specific measures that seek to restrict watchdog journalism. For example, at the end of last year, Anhui Province’s Congyang County (枞阳县) “raised” an “opinion” concerning the correct treatment of the work of watchdog journalism — they say that when central or provincial media conduct reporting on serious problems, reporting with rather large implications, those in charge of the offices concerned must receive [these journalists] in person, accompanying them for the whole process. If there are leaders “accompanying them for the whole process”, who will dare speak a word of truth to the reporters? Watchdog journalism becomes meaningless … Even more terrifying is the beating death on January 9 of journalist Lan Chengzhang, in which China Trade News has confirmed Lan is a reporter hired by their paper and sought to defend his rights.
The editorial concludes:
Watchdog journalism is essentially the people exercising through the media their right to monitor public affairs and the affairs of the state. It is an important channel through which to preserve the fundamental interests of the people. Any attempt to inhibit watchdog journalism goes against the central spirit of the people’s interests, and the trends in a number of areas to fend off watchdog journalism are warning sirens. We must fight against the spread of this trend.

[Posted by David Bandurski, January 18, 2007, 11:30am]

As Guangzhou’s top law-enforcement official, Zhang Guifang (张桂芳), blasted the media as the primary source of a worsening sense of public safety in the city, thousands of Chinese Web users made their own feelings on the issue known. By late afternoon, Web censors were clearly working to contain the story, as thousands of postings suddenly vanished from a major Web portal.
A report this morning from Southern Metropolis Daily, a commercial newspaper published by Guangdong’s official Nanfang Daily, quoted Zhang Guifang, secretary of Guangzhou’s Politics and Law Committee, as saying: “If we can’t bring about a clear improvement in the sense of safety among the people in Guangzhou this year, that doesn’t make sense and there’s no reason for it”. Then came the finger pointing: “Although the media and information industry in Guangzhou has played a major role in economic development, it has rapidly worsened some public safety issues”, said Zhang. [BELOW: Zhang Guifang headline appears in the news section of Sina.com, 9am, January 17].

Coverage of Zhang’s speech from Southern Metropolis Daily appeared among the top news headlines today at Sina.com, one of China’s top Web portals. It did not appear on other major Web portals, including QQ, Sohu and 163. When CMP checked postings for the news article at 4pm, there were a total of 2,121. Just one hour later, the total number of postings had fallen to under 1,000, a sign Sina.com was under pressure to keep opinion surrounding the story contained.
The story is likely to create some tension in the party ranks in Guangdong, where Zhang Guifang is reportedly a thorn in the side of the province’s top official, Party Secretary Zhang Dejiang. Zhang has been the source of much unpopular news in recent years, including his unconditional support for police in the shooting death of a criminal suspect who resisted arrest last year, and his involvement in actions against editors at Southern Metropolis Daily following that newspaper’s breaking of a story in 2003 about the beating death of a young professional, Sun Zhigang. [Yazhou Zhoukan 2004 coverage of Zhang Guifang’s role in punishing SMD editors]. [English summary of Yazhou Zhoukan 2004 story]. Guangdong Party Secretary Zhang Dejiang is likely to be unhappy with Zhang Guifang for generating this latest round of bad publicity. Zhang Guifang is sure to be unhappy with the story and its embarrassing response on Sina.com.
Although a few readers on the Web portal agreed that media had helped create the perception of poor public safety, most found Zhang’s announcement ridiculous: “If you want to know about the safety situation in Guangzhou, just head over to the train station and see for yourself. To have people impudently push responsibility for poor public safety onto the media, that’s just a magnificent pioneering work!” wrote one. Another said with biting sarcasm: “With leaders of this caliber, is it any wonder Guangdong is a city the country sees generally as a mess? Without the media, who knows how many things might be covered up. This kind of secretary should be promoted right up the bureaucracy! The media just doesn’t understand the feelings of the leaders!”
“As I see it,” another Web user wrote simply, “the root cause is social inequality, the gap between rich and poor.”
[Click here for more Web postings at Sina.com (if they are still available!)].
[Posted by David Bandurski, January 17, 2006, 5:56pm]

CMP reported yesterday that a face-off was shaping up in the case of the beating death of China Trade News reporter Lan Chengzhang (兰成长) — between local party officials in Datong, Shanxi Province (where the reporter was killed), who insist Lan was a “fake” reporter out to extort money from local coalmines, and representatives from China Trade News, who confirm they hired Lan on a provisional basis. More news and commentary appeared on the story today, which was first reported in yesterday’s Southern Metropolis Daily and appeared also on major Web portals. [BELOW: Image of cover of a Chinese press card from General Administration of Press and Publications website].

Lan’s identity as a journalist (or not?) remains one of the central questions, although some today are decrying the fact that this question has turned attention away from the search for Lan’s murderers.
What exactly does it mean to be a “journalist” in China? CMP offers a few facts below readers might find helpful as news in the Lan Chengzhang case continues to break.
Shanghai’s Oriental Morning Post, one of the city’s leading commercial papers, this morning quoted an editor at the news desk of China Trade News, Mr. Wang, who called the actions of officials in Datong suspicious: “Something happens on the 9th, and an official document comes out on the 10th. That really tells its own tale”, said Wang, referring to a public notice (tonggao) released by Datong government officials announcing the formation of a special “leading group” to deal with the problem of “fake reporters” and “fake publications”.
The notice was released on January 10 by the local Public Security Bureau and by the Datong office of the General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP), the office tasked with regulating and controlling print media in China. The notice said anyone carrying out reporting activities but not bearing a “press card” issued by GAPP classified as a “fake reporter”.
Generally speaking, journalists must be licensed to work as journalists in China, a process requiring a request from a licensed news organization (usually made by the editor in chief), and fulfillment of certain conditions by the reporter (such as completion of a two-week training session in the Marxist View of Journalism).
The licensing of individual journalists can be viewed as one of four aspects of state-defined legitimacy in China’s journalism world, a way of enforcing control and discipline in the media ranks. Chinese Communist Party measures to define media legitimacy consist of the following: 1) licensing of news or media organizations (allowing media to be formed, and under what conditions), 2) licensing of reporters (issuing press cards and defining conditions), 3) controlling appointment of top media people (an editor in chief, for example, is approved by superior party leaders), 4) reserving the right to shut media down at any time, as suits the needs of party leadership. [BELOW: Image of inside page of a Chinese press card, from GAPP Website, with pointers for authentication].

However, the nature of China’s regulations governing the issue of press cards, and their conditions, make it inevitable that there will be journalists working in China without press cards, according to former Southern Weekend editor Zhang Ping, writing in today’s Southern Metropolis Daily. A professional qualifications system set up for media in 2003 as a condition for issuance of press cards meant that roughly 100,000 press workers had to undergo training and pass professional examinations to get their credentials, said Zhang — but they were given a period of five years to comply. Zhang added that management procedures for press cards, which took force in March 2005, made one year of work experience a precondition for issuing press cards to editorial staff (as opposed to business, advertising, etc).
In effect, said Zhang, these regulations mean one can reasonably expect, now and in the future, to have legitimate, working journalists without GAPP-issued press cards. “Using a press card to determine whether someone is engaged in [news] extortion or not is like using a temporary residency permit [issued to migrants living in China’s major cities] to determine whether someone is guilty of a crime or not — it violates the spirit of rule of law”.
“Of course government offices can make their own interpretations of these regulations, which were full of a hundred loopholes to begin with,” Zhang added. “But the undeniable fact is that across the country there are many journalists who do not have press cards, and that among these many are honest and upright, abiding strictly by the rules and writing very good news reports. [Zhang Ping explains these government regulations in Southern Metropolis Daily/more translation below].
Aside from Zhang Ping’s point about GAPP regulations on press card issuance, the fact is that a growing number of “journalists” working for bottom-of-the-barrel industry newspapers (行业报纸) in China are hired on a provisional basis, which means they may not carry press cards but have instead letters of introduction (介绍信) from publications that are legitimately registered. This segment of China’s commercialized media industry has become highly problematic. There are undoubtedly “legitimate” editors and reporters working for these types of publications — that is to say, they are doing their best to get real news out to their readership — but it is also most definitely true that “fake news” and “news extortion” are major problems at this level.
One cannot assume, though, as the Datong public notice seems to, that “news extortion” is limited to those lacking proper press credentials. It is happening everywhere, even at the highest levels, as illustrated by the 2002 bribery and news extortion case exposed by China Youth Daily reporter Liu Chang, in which four “journalists” from the official Xinhua News Agency were among those implicated. Officials are also too willing to use the “news extortion” brand to battle legitimate reporters with real stories disadvantageous to local governments — this charge was, in fact, leveled against Gao Qinrong, the reporter recently released after being jailed for eight years on trumped-up charges.
Even if press cards were the issue and all Chinese journalists carried them, chaos in the process of issuing these cards would leave a vast area of grey, and there would be legitimate doubts about who was a “real” journalist and who was not. Some journalists have told CMP of cases in which employees of media organizations who are not involved in newsgathering (drivers, office staff, etc.) possess “legitimate” press credentials, leaving open the potential for abuse. Others point out that press cards are notoriously easy to courterfeit.
The second problem is nominally addressed by the database of registered journalists (those having press cards) offered on the national Website of the General Administration of Press and Publications. The database is searchable, so that if a reporter walks into your office in Datong asking for an interview, you can plug his/her information into the GAPP site and view the status of their credentials. [BELOW: Screen capture from GAPP Website, searchable press card database circled in upper left with CMP translation].

The GAPP site also provides a running record of press cards as they are cancelled for various reasons (disciplinary, retirement), or if they have been lost or stolen. This database offers a taste of just how complicated the process of identifying a “real” journalist can be when the “journalist” label is defined and policed (and inevitably abused) by a vast and inefficient bureaucracy.
For Zhang Ping, responding to Lan Chengzhang’s murder in Southern Metropolis Daily today, the issue of press cards and “real” versus “fake” journalists is really about the overarching issue of speech freedoms in China. Zhang Ping makes the implicit point that all citizens should have the right to speak their minds and seek out informtion, regardless of whether or not they have press cards. Further, he argues that rigid notions of approved journalists do not fit well with interactive media and the modern information age:
Actually, news professionals are not like doctors, lawyers or accountants, with professional standards that can be tested — most countries worldwide do not have entry systems for the profession [of journalism], or at any rate strict ones. As traditional media grow, and as new media develop rapidly, this task [of setting up such a system] is perhaps an impossible one. For example, if someone without a press card sees something happen, can they post this information on the Web? If someone who does not have a press card simply wants to go to Datong to understand some information a little better, can they simply be attacked?
As for this beating death in Datong, those real local reporters [with press cards] haven’t uttered a word, and those Web users [who have dared to come forward with information] are exactly who Datong is attacking. What is the end result of this attack? What exactly does it mean to make this distinction between real and fake reporters?
Zhang Ping also called on industry colleagues to make their views known on the issue of “fake” reporters, the implication being that many publications in China have staff who might qualify as “fake” journalists under the Datong test: “I think all top editors across China should stand up and say with good conscience, have we hired “fake reporters”, are these [so-called] “fake reporters” [those without press cards] doing their job, is it right if they are attacked, should they be protected? ”
Media were also pointing out today that the debate over whether or not Lan Chengzhang was a “fake” reporter was turning attention away from the fact that his murder was a crime. Shanghai’s Oriental Morning Post quoted a Beijing-based criminal prosecutor as saying the incident in Datong [Lan’s murder] had “already violated China’s criminal law and the behavior of the perpetrator’s was an act of premeditated murder subject to a sentence of 10 or more years in prison”.
A second editorial on page A30 of Southern Metropolis Daily sought to turn the focus of the case to the question of finding those responsible for Lan Chengzhang’s attack and launching an official investigation of the coalmine involved: “Is it really so important whether the person murdered was a real or fake reporter?” the editorial asked.
LINKS:
“Journalist Beaten to Death in China After Mine Probe“, AFP
[Posted by David Bandurski, January 17, 2007, 4:00pm]