On the eve of reform, China’s regimented media relied on daily slogans, but 30 years on journalists are pushing the envelope, helped by the internet and other new technologies, even if taboos remain.
Most recently, China’s media attacked the government of a city in central China’s Henan province for hiring 11 vice-mayors in what the Beijing News called a waste of money “unacceptable to the people”.
State-run Xinhua news agency recently used the word “strike” to describe a work stoppage by angry taxi drivers in the south-western city of Chongqing.
More and more, topics that were seldom seen as late as a decade ago are being reported by the Chinese media, especially by daily newspapers and magazines that are considered “commercial”.
Although they are spin-offs of party-run propaganda papers, they seek to stay afloat through their sales and work hard to attract readers.
“While party newspapers tend toward dry propaganda reports praising the actions of party leaders, commercial newspapers sometimes offer more nuanced coverage,” said David Bandurski, of the China Media Project at the University of Hong Kong.
“Of course media must still obey their party masters to ensure their survival but they have new masters too in millions of increasingly savvy Chinese media consumers. This tension can open up space for some pretty good journalism, controls notwithstanding.”
Still there are plenty of off-limit areas that journalists must avoid, said one reporter, who, characteristically, spoke on condition of anonymity.
Coverage banned from the Chinese media includes reports supporting the 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests, advocating Taiwan independence, or sympathising with the outlawed spiritual group the Falungong or Tibetan independence, he said.
Meanwhile if local officials can become the target of investigative journalism, high level-leaders remain untouchable.
“You can kill flies, but not tigers,” goes a local saying. When journalists do attack a “tiger”, it is interpreted as a signal that the official’s demise is approaching fast.
On top of that, the Communist Party’s propaganda department, which controls the county’s media, has also shown that it is adept at coping with the new environment.
“If there is any change in the way the Communist Party has controlled the media, one could say they are more subtle,” said He Qinglian, a former journalist forced into exile in the United States after her books were banned.
In the age of the internet and cellphones, the authorities can no longer stifle bad news, so now they seek to impose their version of the facts on the media.
“One of the best examples of how this works is the recent taxi protest in Chongqing. There was blanket coverage of this major news story in media across the country,” said Bandurski.
However, the coverage was monopolised entirely by Xinhua, with heavy focus on a press conference held by Bo Xilai, the city’s communist party chief.
“The news was not suppressed, as it might have been in the past, and reporting happened quickly, but all we got was an official version of the facts,” said Bandurski.
“We have to be careful not to make too much of apparent signs of openness in the handling of information.”
Meanwhile, China’s leaders have never changed their attitude toward the media, said He.
“Top Chinese leaders repeatedly proclaimed that the media must remain the mouthpiece of the party. This has not changed at all,” she said. – AFP