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]

So far this month, “watchdog journalism”, or “supervision by public opinion” (舆论监督), is one of the buzzwords to keep an eye on in China. A recent surge in watchdog journalism-related news has ushered the term into the headlines and given media an opportunity to reflect on their relationship to the party and their role in Chinese society. The latest news story to spark debate is a local Hunan government’s announcement of a new “watchdog journalism prize”, which has many commentators crying foul.
The term “supervision by public opinion” is often used by Communist Party leaders in China to denote media monitoring to fight corruption lower down on the official foodchain. The term was first mentioned by top officials as a form of power monitoring in the late 1980s, subject to control by its more muscular twin, “guidance of public opinion”. But for many journalists and experts hoping for a more independent role for journalism, “supervision by public opinion” stands in as the Chinese cognate of Western “watchdog journalism”, a proxy term for greater press freedom.
The first news story to launch watchdog journalism into the headlines this month came as new local rules on fighting corruption took effect in Henan’s capital city of Zhengzhou. The rules, announced back in November, make specific mention of “supervision by public opinion” as a key form of power monitoring. But some experts have argued that the rules, which push media with government mandates rather than empowering them with legal protections, simply highlight the need for better protections for independent journalism. The next story came as top Chinese law-enforcement officials, meeting in Beijing, gave a quiet thumbs up in their official bulletin to “watchdog journalism” as a means of combating corruption, a story some media pounced on with great appetite.
When news came last Friday of a new “watchdog journalism prize” given by top leaders in Chenzhou, a city in Hunan province that was the source of much negative news in 2006 (including a cover up of the local death toll resulting from floods brought on by Typhoon Bilis), many journalists eyed the announcement with suspicion. The announcement of the Chenzhou prize said specifically that awards would be given to “central and provincial-level media” whose reports promoted progress in the city, which had other media asking: what about local media in Chenzhou?
Now, even the official Xinhua News Agency has made its feelings about the prize known. In a news commentary (时评) that ran yesterday in Guangdong’s official Nanfang Daily, Chongqing Morning Post and other papers, Xinhua wrote that “awarding watchdog journalism always sounds a bit unnatural” because:
In an open society a healthy media will have a “natural impulse” toward watchdog journalism, what some have called the “journalist’s sense of [professional] honor”. Therefore, for media, creating an atmosphere “suited” to watchdog journalism is far more important than “awarding” watchdog journalism. What a healthy media cares about is whether or not its own rights are practicable. To have journalists thinking all day about how to take watchdog journalism sources and turn them ‘to their advantage’ [thinking about awards, or money, or things other than their professional duty], can, if not done right, lead to ‘professional news extortionists’.
The commentary, “Watchdog Journalism Needs Rights, Not Prizes”, said the real need was for a working system that protected journalists and their right to conduct watchdog journalism: “Building a system protecting the regular workings of the media is much more effective than the support of any one person or any ‘policy of favoring media’ (惠媒政策). Naturally, this is a major project and not something any one local area can ‘get right'”.
An editorial in yesterday’s The Beijing News said the awarding of “watchdog journalism prizes” in such a way as to confuse the relationship between media and those being monitored in fact constituted a kind of “soft resistance” to watchdog journalism: “As the subject of monitoring, the government should not express gratitude to those monitoring it by awarding prizes, but rather by creating an environment ‘suited’ to watchdog journalism”, the newspaper said.
A page two editorial in Southern Metropolis Daily said the Chenzhou prize — the local government’s “shift from resisting watchdog journalism to rewarding it” — revealed the lack of real acceptance of watchdog journalism by government officials. “What is most regrettable,” the paper wrote, “is that up to today there is still no definite legal relationship between the media and the monitoring of public power, and the right to conduct watchdog journalism has not been afforded adequate protection. When officials are happy, they can give out watchdog journalism prizes, when they are unhappy they can keep [news] from seeing the light of day”.
Chinese media have also made repeated references (as did the recent Xinhua news commentary on the Chenzhou prize, and Southern Metropolis Daily earlier this month) to the State Council’s much-touted policy of a “constructive and cooperative partnership” with foreign news media in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
News of the beating of one Nanfang Daily reporter in Guangdong [ESWN coverage here], and the beating death of a reporter (officials say “fake” reporter) in Shanxi, should keep the question of journalists’ rights firmly in the sights of Chinese media this week.
[Posted by David Bandurski, January 16, 2006, 2:15pm]

Lan Chenchang (兰成长) A Shanxi-based reporter for China Trade News (中国贸易报) was severely beaten by unknown assailants on January 9 while covering a coalmine near Datong City in Shanxi, according to a report from Southern Metropolis Daily [report via Sohu.com]. The reporter died of his injuries the next day, and a controversy is now brewing over Lan Chenchang’s identity as a journalist. While a source at China Trade News told Southern Metropolis Daily they had hired Lan on a freelance basis, officials in Datong have insisted Lan Chenchang was a “fake” reporter killed because he tried to extort money with a negative news report.
On January 12, just two days after Lan’s death, the city government in Datong launched a new campaign against “fake” reporters in the area [Chinese coverage from Sohu.com].
CMP understands from Chinese media sources that this story is generating a lot of interest among reporters. Stay tuned to CMP for more news and analysis.

January 9 — Chinese commercial media voiced various opinions on the execution of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. The coverage came as national television media in China were told to tread carefully around news of the execution, making reports only according to Foreign Ministry statements and without expressing sympathies for any particular party.
January 9 — The publication of an essay called “Democracy is a Good Thing” by Central Translation Bureau deputy director Yu Keping, a close ally of Hu Jintao, rippled through Chinese-language media, fueling speculation about more lively debate inside China over political reform as the 17th Party Congress approaches. [Translation of “Democracy is a Good Thing” from ESWN].
January 9 — At a recent forum on China’s “cultural industries” — covering media and the arts — a top official with the General Administration of Press and Publications (responsible for overseeing print media and publishing, attacked what he called “cultural garbage”. [Coverage from Danwei.org].
January 11 — U.S. Congressman Chris Smith reintroduced the Global Online Freedom Act (GOFA), first drafted by U.S. lawmakers in 2006 after several high-profile cases involving cooperation between Chinese authorities and American Internet companies. [Analysis by Rebecca MacKinnon here]. [“Analysis: Yahoo’s China problem“, CNN Money, February 8, 2006].
January 13 — Liang Wenxiang, a reporter for Guangdong Province’s official Nanfang Daily was beaten by unknown assailants outside his home. The reason’s for the attack are not yet known. [Brief summary from ESWN].

Chinese Web portal Sina.com gave major play this morning to a story laying emphasis on the mention of “watchdog journalism” in the official bulletin coming out of a recent session of top discipline inspection officials in China. But that coverage had vanished by shortly after 9am. [BELOW: Screen capture from Sina.com news main page, 9am, January 11].

The official bulletin from the Seventh Plenary Session of the Central Discipline Inspection Commission (CDC), held in Beijing from January 8-10, called for the “strengthening” of party and government transparency and made mention of watchdog journalism, or “supervision by public opinion”, as a key form of power monitoring. The term was listed, however, at the end of a string of transparency-related terms, including intra-party democracy (党内民主) and transparency of party affairs (党务公开).
In an article appearing before 9am this morning, Sina.com posted a large headline reading, “CDC: Must Promote Transparency of Party Affairs and Strengthen Watchdog Journalism”. Shortly after 9am the headline disappeared, although the news remained available deeper within the site. A media insider told CMP the move likely came as media censors felt the story misconstrued the emphasis of the CDC bulletin — in other words, while the bulletin emphasized the need for greater transparency, its purpose was not to empower media.
The news follows recent discussion in China’s domestic media of legislation in Henan’s provincial capital of Zhengzhou mandating watchdog journalism to combat official abuse of duty.
Links:
Official bulletin from the Central Discipline Inspection Committee (“media supervision” SEE section 6)
[Posted by David Bandurski, January 11, 2007, 10:53am]

A new local regulation combating official corruption and abuse of duty in Henan’s capital city of Zhengzhou makes specific mention of watchdog journalism, or “supervision by public opinion” (舆论监督), as a key form of monitoring. An article in today’s official People’s Daily notes with a hint of praise that the legislation “especially singles news media out”, saying “news units should carry out supervisio n by public opinion on national government personnel” [NOTE: While the Chinese specifies “national” government personnel, this can be understood more generally as “government personnel”, applying to those officials within the jurisdiction of Zhengzhou].
Back on January 6, however, The Beijing News offered a moderate dissent in an editorial by a prominent legal scholar, saying the language “should” in the media-related portion was ill-chosen and that such legislation should emphasize the right rather than the duty of media to perform a watchdog role. The editorial also advised national leaders to take the lead in protecting the media’s right to conduct watchdog journalism, rather than surrender the issue to local governments. [David Bandurski speaks with National Public Radio about Chinese watchdog journalism].
The ordinance, which took effect on January 1, designates a range of areas — a “region of priority supervision” — for monitoring of government behavior by prosecutors and the press. These include, among others, official expenditures (treating of guests, etc), and the levying of educational fees.
People’s Daily today quoted an official in Zhengzhou’s local prosecutor’s office as saying “news media, as independent social mechanisms without complex links with those subject to supervision and capable of disseminating information in a fast, timely and broad manner, have advantages other prevention measures do not have … and are an efficient means of combating abuse of duty”.
In a page three legal column in the January 6 edition of The Beijing News, Peking University law professor Jiang Ming’an (姜明安) said the Zhengzhou ordinance should either specify that news units “can” carry out supervision by public opinion, or, alternatively, should state that “national government personnel should receive (接受) press supervision from news media”.
Professor Jiang’s argument follows:
“Should” implies a form of legal obligation, that if the subject of the law does not carry out this legal duty they will bear a legal responsibility. If this is the case, are we saying that when national government personnel are in violation of their [official] duties, media should all report on it, and that whatever newspapers and radio or TV stations do not will have to bear legal responsibility? Or, is the meaning of “should” not so broad, meaning that if a government employee acts in violation of their duties, only those media who know about it, or should know about it, should carry out news reporting, or otherwise bear legal responsibility? But if [the latter] is the case, who decides whether the relevant media “knew or should have known”? Clearly, supervision by public opinion should be a right of the news media and not a legal duty or obligation.
News media have a natural initiative in carrying out supervision by public opinion on government personnel violating their official duties, and they will often very much take the initiative in reporting the behavior of officials violating their duties or related incidents. Because if media lack this drive and initiative, they will lose their viewers, listeners and readers in a competitive marketplace, and quietly die out as a result. What this means is that local governments need only relax restrictions [on the media].
The problem is not that news media lack the initiative or drive to go out and conduct watchdog journalism on government personnel, but rather that some areas and some government offices place too many restrictions on media carrying out watchdog journalism. Just think, if we loosen these restrictions just a bit, and abolish a few (we cannot abolish them all, of course), will there still be so many officials daring to commit “corrupt act after corrupt act” without hesitation right under everyone’s noses? Would we still have all of these mining disasters, one after another?
Of course, for the law to permit watchdog journalism doesn’t necessarily mean that news media can carry out watchdog journalism without any restrictions whatsoever. The law needs also to monitor watchdog journalism and regulate it as necessary, otherwise media might use watchdog journalism for corrupt ends, such as news extortion. But limitations on the carrying out of watchdog journalism by news media are best established through the law, and not through ministries or local governments. Otherwise, the freedom of the media to conduct watchdog journalism will be fragmentary at best, or disappear altogether. Therefore, the author advises that the National People’s Congress make haste in promulgating a law relevant to this area.
[Posted by David Bandurski, January 10, 2007, 4:24pm]