A Dark Age for Chinese Media

The future of the media in China is changing quickly as seen by recent incidents.
A Dark Age for Chinese Media
Various newspapers and magazines are seen at a roadside stall in Beijing on April 7, 2009. (Emilie Mocellin/AFP/Getty Images)
2/9/2011
Updated:
10/1/2015
<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/85832992.jpg" alt="Various newspapers and magazines are seen at a roadside stall in Beijing on April 7, 2009. (EMILIE MOCELLIN/AFP/Getty Images)" title="Various newspapers and magazines are seen at a roadside stall in Beijing on April 7, 2009. (EMILIE MOCELLIN/AFP/Getty Images)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-1784796"/></a>
Various newspapers and magazines are seen at a roadside stall in Beijing on April 7, 2009. (EMILIE MOCELLIN/AFP/Getty Images)
Three separate recent incidents of Chinese journalists being forced to leave their posts reflect the regime’s new media directives to further intensify censorship. The dismissals have evoked strong public disapproval from bloggers and media workers who view this as the beginning of the darkest age for Chinese media.

The latest casualty of media censorship has been Chang Ping, a well-known news commentator who was asked to leave his position at Southern Daily Group and then chose to resign.

The Southern Daily Group has long been considered one of the few brave voices in Chinese media. But Chang indicated that the tradition of Southern Metropolis Daily (owned by Southern Daily Group) is gone after repeatedly going through staff purges.

“These purges has been very effective. Many good reporters have been forced to leave Southern Daily Group, and several more ‘obedient’” officials were placed in key positions in the Group. The rebellious tradition of the Group has been repressed to nothing,” Chang told Voice of America.

The news of Chang’s forced resignation broke on the afternoon of Jan. 27 and quickly spread via twitter and other microblogs. By evening, over one thousand signatures condemning the forced resignation had been gathered online.

Chang responded in his Sina microblog saying: “Thanks to all who care about me. There is no particular reason [for the dismissal], except for the fact that I did not stop writing. Despite being told many times to stop, I have never given in. So, I chose to be ‘resigned’. I despise and condemn all punishment resulting from expressing one’s views.”

Chang told Radio France Internationale (RFI) that a vice minister of the Central Propaganda Department visited Southern Daily Group for “research and investigation.” Afterwards the Group went through a series of internal purges, which included the transfer of the director of the Commentary Department, Li Wenkai, and the termination of Chang’s job—the biggest change.

RFI said that a senior media worker confirmed on Jan. 28 that it was the vice minister of the Central Propaganda Department, Cai Mingzhao, who had pressured Southern Daily Group to fire Chang. Cai held the position of deputy director of the State Council Information Office before he joined the Central Propaganda Department in 2009.

New Reporting Restrictions


A new propaganda directive was passed down to all levels of media outlets after a meeting of directors from provincial Propaganda Departments was held in Beijing on Jan. 4, 2011, Radio Free Asia reported on Jan. 12.



Next: Central government level media must be guided by local Propaganda


Furthermore it says, central government level media must be guided by local Propaganda Departments in local news reporting; and it is “absolutely not allowed” to oppose the government.

Also, during the Chinese New Year travel rush, report only positive news; do not report how difficult it is to get train tickets.

Asia Weekly also reported that the Central Propaganda Department demanded that all regional media entities implement tight control over the reporting of current political and civil affairs before the 18th National Congress of the CCP scheduled in 2012.

Additionally, no sensitive social news are allowed to be published on the Internet. Otherwise the media entity will face harsh punishment.

Crossing the ‘Red Line’


On Jan. 8, Peng Xiaoyun, the director of the commentary department from Time Weekly, headquartered in Guangdong Province, was forced to go on vacation indefinitely.

Shortly afterwards, Time Weekly announced internally that its chief editor, Song Fanyin, had been removed from office.

Sources say the trigger for these dismissals was the Time Weekly’s choice of nominees on its “Time 100” list, which included Zhao Lianhai, an activist who tried to seek justice for babies and families harmed by a tainted milk powder scandal in 2008. The root cause, however, is that Time Weekly has previously published too many commentaries that have crossed the Propaganda Department’s “red line.”

On Jan. 21, senior reporter Long Can of Chengdu Business Daily was fired because of his investigative report on the rescue effort of students from Shanghai’s Fudan University who were trapped in a closed area of the Yellow Mountain.

The Central Propaganda Department said his report was fabricated and demanded harsh punishment of Long.

However, a New Tang Dynasty Television reporter discovered that the Shanghai Propaganda Department had sent an official letter to the Central Propaganda Department complaining about the media coverage of the rescue effort. High-ranking officials in the Central Propaganda Department then decided to label Long’s report as “fake.”

Regime Paranoia


Asia Weekly, a Hong Kong-based magazine, said in a Jan. 9 report that the Central Propaganda Department had assigned staff to monitor all major central government newspapers, including some influential local media like the Southern Daily Group. The Department also announced the plan to select two reviewers within every media to be in charge of censoring publications.

With such measures, the censoring system is evolving from post-publication investigation to prepublication censoring. The “reviewer team” serves as “a steel wire around the neck of Chinese media,” the report said.

He Qinglian, a prominent U.S. based political and economic commentator on China affairs, expressed her thoughts in a recent article, “Alarming Political Implications of China’s Intensified Censorship.” She said the recent development at the Southern Daily Group is “an alarming political signal” and “a tight control not seen since China’s reform in the 70’s.”

“The Chinese regime has been extremely paranoid about its own stability. What it fails to see is that the wire around the media’s neck will just open the door for local governments to ferociously prey on the people—it is actually creating an upheaval, through the connivance of the central government itself,” He said.

She also predicted: “This will prove to be a heavy blow to the regime’s already fragile reign.”

[email protected]