Long before the death of CCP leader Deng Xiaoping was officially announced in February 1997, rumour about his critical health had widely spread. Hong Kong and overseas media were well-prepared for this "news" that could break anytime. Preparation began in early 1990s as Deng appeared less and less frequently on public occasions – a sign that a leader is no longer in good health.
It was and remains a common practice for the press to build up an archive for any old top Hong Kong and mainland politician whose days are deemed numbered. Among them the file size of Deng definitely ranked first. Taking the example of the newspaper I worked for at that time, layouts of some 10 pages for the profile about Deng had been created and constantly updated.
There was a weird and funny journalistic phenomenon. While all political journalists well knew that Deng was on the doorstep to another world, they were gorwingly anxious. To be precise, they were so prepared yet so nervous that they would not be the first to report the news. During a year or two preceding Deng's death, global media kept quoting sources to "report the death" of Deng. Some must-interview celebrities such as Hong Kong democrats were "pre-interviewed" and their "response" was included in Deng's profile.
With a news cake 99% baked, media could use least time and manpower to run the story.
On 19 February 1997, I left work before mid-night and slept at about 1-2am on 20 February. As soon as I woke up, I heard radio broadcasting "the news". I rang my boss, the political editor of a popular, "pro-democracy Chinese daily. I told her I could return office immediately to help. She said with ease that "everything is ok. All you need to do is to enjoy reading the detailed report by our paper". Of course, she did not do the story alone and overnight. She simply gave a "print" signal after she reckoned that the news had been confirmed.
A print media, we were not the first to report. CTN or Zhontian(中天頻道), a 24-hour-a-day Chinese TV channel funded by the boss of Hong Kong Ming Pao, was it. At 00.15am, 20 February, it reported the death, about three hours after Deng passed away. CTN was followed by other electronic media. This was a huge bet for them. If official Xinhua News Agency had not issued a formal announcement hours later, they would all end up being accused of being the first to report inaccurately!
Basically, the structure of the news script by all media was as simple as "At 9.03pm yesterday, Hong Kong time, Deng Xiaoping, the chief architect of the open-door policy and top cadre of the PRC, died at the age of 92 [followed by a 30-min profile of Deng about his achievements and life]".
Yesterday marked 10 years after Mr Deng's death. Few days earlier, the media had started working on stories in memory of Deng. Some reported on what the mainland had become as a result of Deng's reform policy and that Hong Kong and Macau people could live they way they had been given Deng's promise to keep the cities unchanged for 50 years. Some even interviewed old folks of Deng in his home county Guang An, Sichuan Province, and citizens in Shenzhen, which was designated as the first PRC Special Economic Zone by Deng.
Ironically, while Deng guaranteed 50 years of no change, the cities' media seemed to have their news judgment delicately adjusted. Reports about Deng did not hit any front page headline of Hong Kong papers. Nor were post-Deng issues discussed by their editorials from 18-20 February.
This was in line with the stance of the central government which stayed low-profile, with no commemorative activities for the late cadre, no comprehensive reviews done by national media like CCTV, Xinhua and China Daily.
On the contrary and a scne virtually non-existent ten years ago, the netizens are far more enthusiastic about Deng. There are heated debates on Deng's contribution online. Some worship Deng on the internet. On the Sina website, as many as 36,000 users have honoured Deng with "flowers" at a corner specially dedicated for him.
Restrictions on foreign reporters covering the 2008 Olympics would be loosened and extra freedoms be given to the Hong Kong and Macau media according to mainland officials.
A "free and liberal" (放任自由) approach would be taken under in the new rules (北京奧運會及其籌備期間外國記者在華採訪規定) governing coverage in the mainland by foreign reporters before and during the Olympics from 1 January 2007 onwards, the State Council on 1 December announced.
Sources said the move was for the new generation of Chinese leaders to use Olympics as an opportunity to "test the water" that may pave the way for a post-2008 review on press freedom.
One of the major changes is a provision that allows foreign journalists to conduct interviews with any person or organ in the mainland without government permission.
Li Xiguang (李希光), deputy dean of Tsinghua University's School of Journalism and Communications, was quoted as saying that loosening of regulations for news reporting during Olympics has been an international convention. It is a move that must be taken by Beijing which is wise to do it this way at this time, he added.
Noting that the liberal approach may cease after a two-year trial period, Cui Baoguo (崔保國), a professor of the faculty in Tsinghua, was confident that the authorities and society would become more tolerant about the impact of press freedom and the approach may become normal and prevail even after the party's 17th Plenary session.
Meanwhile, quoting an unnamed official of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office (HKMAO) (國務院港澳事務辦公室) on 9 December, South China Morning Post reported that HKMAO's liaison department and other related central agencies are finalizing rules that would allow HK and Macau journalists to "travel and report more freely across most of the country during the Games".
Yang Qing (楊青), deputy director of the All-China Journalists' Association (中華全國新聞工作者協會)'s Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan Affairs Office – a semi-official body overseeing journalists from the three places to cover in the mainland – did not specify if such rules would apply to the Tibet and Xinjiang regions.
Previous regulations came into effect since the 4 June 1989 crackdown, requiring all reporters to apply to cover any activity in the mainland and that the coverage should not go beyond the scope outlined in the application form. Since 2002, HK and Macau journalists have been able to be mainland-based given prior approval from local government offices to report on issues outside their city of residence.
Firing Squad in Iran
Iranian photographer Jahangir Razmi has been confirmed as the winner of a Pulitzer Prize 25 years ago. His name had been kept secret until a front-page investigative story on Wall Street Journal on 2 December 2006.
Razmi, now 58, took 70 pictures of an execution in Kurdistan on 27 August 1979 and one of them won the Spot News Photograhy award of the Pulitzer Prize in 1980. The award was however "presented" to an unnamed photographer of the United Press International, the only anonymous recipient in the 90-year history of Pulitzer as Razmi's identity had to be kept secret for safety.
Entitled "Firing Squad in Iran", the photo shows a line of 11 blindfolded men executed in 1979 after Islamic radicals overthrew the shah of Iran. It was published by Iran's then second to largest newspaper Ettela'at but the editor decided not to credit the photo for fear about Razmi's safety.
The years long path of Joshua Prager, the WSJ reporter uncovering the story behind the photo which has long been a symbol of brutality of Iran's Islamic government, was in fact an enlightening investigative story itself.
Prager first spoke to all the Associated Press photographers who had put him through UPI photographers who ran the UPI bureau in Brussels at the time of Iranian revolution in 1979. From there, he said, he was able to trace back who had sent the picture from Tehran to Brussels to the rest of the world.
While it was highly risky for Razmi to post the pictures out of Iran at that time, the courage of Ettela'at to run it should be hailed as well.
The Iranians had been struggling for freedom even under the regime of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi , the last shah of Iran. When Ayatollah Khomeini came to power, one of his priority tasks was to crack down on press freedom and censorship had already begun. Following the day it was published in Ettela'at, the photo triggered worldwide outrage through a dispatch by UPI. It was also widely tagged throughout Iran. As a result, Khomeini ordered the appropriation of the newspaper.
Covering totalitarian countries has always been dangerous. Journalists sometimes have to bet their life in exchange of on-site reporting and subsequent publication of the compelling stories. In Razmi's case, his fame had to be buried for a quarter century as well.
In PRC under the communist regime, labour strikes, religious activities, executions of untried or unfairly tried prisoners, corruption cases and other kinds of human rights violations have all been too sensitive for getting to be published. From time to time, anonymous articles and photos are disseminated by agencies or individuals to alert people around the world of the uncomforting side of the country, a real picture other than the one about prosperity.
Heartfelt thanks to these hidden heros. They are very much wanted and wanted to be seen one day.
Li Yundi(from left), Lang Lang and Kimura Takuya
A talent-poaching scheme implemented by the Hong Kong government may provide paparazzi with new hunting targets.
The Quality Migrant Admission Scheme has received 479 applications and processed 186 of them since it began accepting applications in June, announced the Immigration Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government on 8 November.
Aiming at broadening Hong Kong's talent basis, the scheme has drawn the interest of mainland's top athletes and two outstanding musicians, according to the department.
The two musicians are reportedly pianists Li Yundi (李雲廸), who won the Warsaw International Chopin Competition in 2000 and Lang Lang (郎朗), who swept the first prize at the Fourth International Young Pianists Competition in Germany in 1993 at the age of 11.Li and Lang admitted that they had lodged an application because they were fascinated by the vibrancy and freedom of Hong Kong and migrating to Hong Kong would enable them to travel more easily for overseas performances without giving up their identity as a Chinese national.
What they may not be well aware may be that the international city also houses a highly-developed community of paparazzi and aggressive reporters who are capable of exhausting the energy of any celebrities being targeted.
Bearing the nicknames of "Prince of Piano (鋼琴王子)" and "Kimura Takuya of the pianist world (音樂界木村拓哉)", Li has been the idol of many who are not so interested in music but a good looking artist. His private life will in no doubt be an object for reporters of all news beats of the local media.
Lang Lang, dubbed not as handsome, is not much better. Loving Hong Kong's east-meet-west and metropolitan culture, he once said "there are very 'cool' hair stylists" and he would visit a cool stylist in Tsim Sha Tsui each time he came to Hong Kong. How this young, wealthy (scheme applicants have to meet certain income limits) pianist spends his monies in brand shops will likely be an "investigative" tabloid story.
In Hong Kong, apart from show business stars, public officers and their family members and even boy and girl friends may be followed 24/7 by text and photo journalists, should a scandal happen or an issue become heated. But soon, these people may be free, albeit temporarily, from media surveillance with the arrival of new faces Li and Lang.
Perhaps, the recent court ruling on a private intrusion case may help prevent this undesirable scenario.
Earlier this month Eastern Court magistrate Colin Mackintosh sentenced an Indonesian maid sneaking into a hospital's intensive-care unit (ICU) and taking video pictures of ailing actress Lydia Shum (whose nickname is Fei Fei) to four weeks in jail.
However, the maid, employed by a deputy editor of Eastweek (東周刊) magazine, declined to tell who had instructed her to break into the ICU. She is believed to have been compensated for concealing the truth. Most Hong Kong domestic helpers are paid less than $4,000 a month. To plug the maid's mouth, say, with one year’s salary and send her back home, it would cost tens of thousands dollars, a good deal compared with the possible gain from a surge in circulation of Eastweek as a result of the publication of a photo of Fei Fei in ICU.
So, the verdict does have but little deterrent effect.
Hey, Li and Lang, enough warning has been given. Don't regret if you find Hong Kong is not a quiet place for you to polish the piano skill.
Thanks to the power and enthusiasm of the media, celebrities passing away have been brought back to life.
With the explosion of information, the life of people with a certain level of public recognition can be prolonged. Not to mention the global names like Ronald Reagan, Pope Paul II and Princess Diana, Chinese national leader and Hong Kong tycoon Henry Fok, and local pop superstars Leslie Cheung and Anita Mui. The citations of their names and images, after their departure, grew exponentially in all forms of the mass media.
It would not be surprising if youngsters in the Western world can tell lot more about Reagan who left two years ago than JF Kennedy and Winston Churchill who reigned in the post-war world. How many Chinese would know that Wang Guangmei (王光美), wife of former PRC president Liu Shaoqi (劉少奇), could have been the first Chinese winner of Nobel Prize for Physics if this piece of history were not digged out and widely published by media?
The fact that these celebrities' deaths gave a "story" to the media has made them "more real" than ever. The stories were no doubt front-page and cross-page news drawing out for days. The more legendary their lives were, the more lasting their newsworthiness was. Sometimes, a glamorous story could be translated into a special brochure or a dedicated website that backdated three generations before the life of the celebrity was profiled.
Most of the public had little knowledge about the past and personality of these celebrities when they were alive. Neither did they bother to seek to know more as, they thought, "the time had yet to come" and they did not have to time to check either.
While friends and relatives of the dead may be so much saddened by the loss of their celebrity beloved, the public probably don't feel as painful. They seldom have arm's length contact with the well-know dead person. Moreover, they tend to be forgetful and scatter-brained.
Therefore, not only can posthumous news reporting help re-present the celebrities to the ordinary people, but also rebuild, round up and enrich their images, an exercise almost equivalent to putting the deceased into a state of immortality.
Next time (touch wood), when you feel confused about who a public figure is, don't worry. You will surely obtain great details provided you will live longer than he or she will. It is not a curse and I am just quoting the others – as many celebrities put, we will all die.
Next time (touch wood again!), consider gaining fame from TV programme American Idol and asking the media to preserve you in the loving memory of the others, if a hospital surgeon cannot protect you physically.
According to an update by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, or HKTDC, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, or SAIC, recently issued a circular calling on all domestic offices to carry out inspections against the illegal use of the names of senior party and state officials in advertising.
Although the images of state leaders are now seldom found in TV commercials, media ads and outdoor ads, HKTDC said, some enterprises are making use of the names of party and state leaders in point-of-sales advertising.
The SAIC circular states that shopping malls, specialty stores, franchised stores, eateries and other types of point-of-sales outlets are the key targets for inspection of the use of the inscriptions, photos and other materials of party and state leaders. Local SAIC offices would also inspect advertisements released by media organisations and point-of-sales ads. They would stop and strictly punish such illegal activities.
In fact, the name of the leader of the HKSAR was used publicly before. In late 2003, or after SARS, the public recognition of the then chief executive Tung Chee Hwa hit into a record low. Steak Expert (扒王之王), a local beef steak restaurant chain, rolled out a gimmicky promotion. Customers calling out the name of "Tung Chee Hwa" would be entitled to a further 20% discount. The discount was later cancelled despite positive customer response. It is believed the restaurant owner had come under pressure that making the offer was disrespectful to Tung.
Mainland authorities have tightened control over the content of advertisements in media and songs sung by karaoke users.
The Beijing News reported that the State General Administration of Press and Publication (National Copyright Administration) (新聞出版總署) and the SAIC had urgently issued a notice detailing a ban on ads touting treatments for 12 illnesses including cancer, hepatitis, AIDS and various venereal diseases. The ban would be implemented tomorrow, 1 November 2006.
The nationwide order, which was issued on 23 October and affect all publications, follows the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television's announcement in August prohibiting television stations from carrying shopping commercials for pharmaceuticals and medical instruments, as well as procedures and products for breast augmentation, weight loss and height increases.
The authorities consider that the ads were misleading the public. Most commercials claim the drugs or services offered can either cure patients of complex diseases or beautify their bodies.
Xinhua on 24 October carried a survey by the State Food and Drug Administration which found that over 90% of the drug advertisements in newspapers were illegal. That means they were published without permission from the authority, or related to banned topics.
The Beijing News report said the new ban would cover drugs and cures for cancer, hepatitis B, neurological disorders, skin diseases and sexually transmitted diseases. Commercials relating to abortion would also be banned.
Quoting the government notice, the paper said some media outlets continually publish illegal and poor-taste ads with false information, and the behaviour has seriously damaged the prestige of the media. The authority also said the ban could be lifted in future if management regulations on medical ads were improved.
Director of People's University media studies centre Yu Guoming (喻國明) opposed the ban on the ground that patients should have the right to access information on medical treatment. To cope with the issue of false medical advertisements, the authorities should tighten the regulation and not ban the advertisements, Yu said.
He expected the ban to impact the newspapers and magazines as medical ads account for 10-20% advertising revenue.
Censorship also has an effect on people's daily entertainment. In July, some media reported the Ministry for Culture (MOC)'s plan to launch a "national content management service system for karaokes" (全國卡拉OK內容管理服務系統) in a bid to prevent unhealthy songs from invading mainland karaokes.
MOC said the new system would be tested in the cities of Wuhan, Zhengzhou and Qingdao. In future, only scrutinized "legal songs" will be available in a unified karaoke song bank.
The public are however concerned about what "unhealthy songs" mean. Officer of MOC's cultural market development centre Liang Gang gave a vague explanation that items included in the official song bank must comply with the nation's rules and regulations, and related policies. Liang added the songs' copyrights would have to be clarified and their content would have to meet [certain] requirements.
Karaoke operators are reportedly worried that if popular songs cannot pass the vetting process, they would fall into the hands of grey market karaoke operators and hurt the competitiveness of karaokes that operate legally.
Citizens online even expressed their fear that the whole country would be singing the same song with a system centralizing what people should sing.
China News Agency (中通社) on 27 October reported that Xinhua News Agency director Tian Congming director 田聰明had been elected new chairman of All China Journalists Association (中華全國新聞工作者協會), or ACJA.
Quoting Beijing observers, Hong Kong Wen Wei Po said the election hinted that there would changes in the leadership of several major central media. Tian was transferred from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, or SARFT, to become Xinhua's director in 2000.
As Tian is expected not to continue his term of office at Xinhua with his election as ACJA chairman, analysts said, the music chairs of key media organizations in Beijing will be adjusted.
According to Wen Wei Po, ACJA is regarded as a "national people's organization" with a strong official flavour. Past ACJA chairmen such as Hu Qiaomu (胡喬木), Deng Tuo (鄧拓) and Wu Lengxi (吳冷西) are important figures of Chinese communist ideology. Last ACJA chairman Zhao Huaze (邵華澤) was formerly People's Daily director and is dean of journalism and communications department at Peking University.
Jason Reed/Reuters
An interesting satellite image of the Korean Peninsula published on 23 October 2006's New York Times.
Taken by US Department of Defense, the satellite picture shows, the paper said, South Korea was illuminated from coast to coast, suggesting that not just lights, but that more bedrock utility of the modern age — information — was penetrating through the population.
The North was black. "While other restrictive regimes have sought to find ways to limit the Internet — through filters and blocks and threats — North Korea has chosen to stay wholly off the grid," the paper said.
New York-based International Women's Media Foundation, or IWMF, announced its 2006 Courage Award Winners. Among the three recipients is Chinese reporter Gao Yu, who has been jailed twice for her reporting.
Gao (高瑜), 62, won the IWMF's Courage in Journalism Award in 1995 but was unable to receive her award due to her imprisonment in China.
IWMF said that Gao, an economic and political reporter, was sentenced in 1993 to six years in prison for "leaking state secrets," through – ironically – a pro-Chinese government newspaper in Hong Kong. Gao was released on medical parole in March 1999, but the terms of her release restricted her from speaking with reporters. She completed the remainder of her jail term at home.
IWMF also said during the 1980s, Gao became known for her investigative pieces on economic issues and her interviews with many of the major architects of reform. Though she was placed under house arrest, Gao's writings were instrumental in the 1989 pro-democracy movement. Her willingness to jeopardize her safety and career in the service of freedom, democracy and human rights contributed to the free press movement. She won the Golden Pen of Freedom in 1995 from the Federation of International Editors of Journals. In 1997, the UNESCO / Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize was awarded by an independent international jury to Gao.
The other two IWMF award winners are Jill Carroll and May Chidiac.
Jill, a staff writer for The Christian Science Monitor, was working in Baghdad as a freelance reporter for the Monitor when she was abducted on 7 January 2006. Carroll was kidnapped about 100 yards from the office of Adnan al-Dulaimi, a prominent Sunni politician. She had scheduled an interview with him but started to leave after an aide told her he was unavailable. Upon driving away, a large truck blocked the path. Armed men surrounded the car, and Carroll was shoved and kidnapped. After an 82-day ordeal, she was released March 30 and returned to the U.S. 2 April.
May Chidiac, 43, is one of the best known faces on Lebanese television.
In September 2005, the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation journalist lost her left hand and left leg as a result of a bomb exploding under the driver's seat of her car. She believes the attack came as a result of her criticism of Syria’s involvement in Lebanon. According to reports obtained by the Committee to Protect Journalists, half a kilogram of explosives was placed in Chidiac's Range Rover. The explosion blew off the driver-side door, which was recovered more than 30 feet away from Chidiac’s car.
If Gao Yu's award mirrors lack of improvement in press freedom in the mainland, an annual report by Paris-based Reporters sans frontieres, or Reports Without Borders, may prove that Hong Kong may have infected with press freedom deficiency from its mother country.
According to 2006 edition of RSF's Annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index,, Hong Kong's press freedom ranking slipped from 39th to 58th, its lowest point in the past five years or since the compilation of the list in 2002, after a year that saw vandalism committed against a local newspaper office and a parcel bomb sent to two reporters.
The first incident occurred last November, when two staff members at Chinese- language Ming Pao Daily News were slightly injured by a parcel bomb they had tried to open. The parcel, addressed to the newspaper's chief editor, arrived with a bouquet of flowers commending the publication for the "good things" Ming Pao reported in mid-October.
The second one occurred in the spring, when vandals smashed through the glass doors of the Hong Kong office of Epoch Times, a newspaper closely linked with the Falun Gong spiritual group. During the night raid, the vandals ransacked the offices and hacked away at the newspaper's in-house printing press.
Serenade Woo, chairwoman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, said she hoped the government would not look lightly upon the report's findings, and predicted that low rankings would hurt foreign investment since investors valued open and free access to information.
However, RSF noted in the report that Hong Kong's media "continued to be very free and the Internet is not censored at all".
Meanwhile, Singapore dropped from 140th to 146th in the world just three weeks after it banned the Far East Economic Review for publishing an article on opposition party leader Chee Soon Juan that Singapore's leaders considered defamatory. It is currently an offense to import or possess copies of the magazine for sale or distribution in the city state.
Topping the list this year are Finland, Iceland, Ireland and the Netherlands, with still more European and Scandinavian countries close behind. The top 15 countries are all from the region.
The United Kingdom ranked 27th, while the United States dropped nine spots to 53rd place. South Korea, at 31st, is tops among East Asian nations, with Taiwan next at 43rd.Lastly, salute to prominent Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot to death on 7 October in the elevator of her apartment building in Moscow.Anna was known for her critical coverage of the war in Chechnya. Prosecutors believe the killing could be connected to her investigative work. She was a tireless reporter who had written a critical book on Russian President Vladimir Putin and his campaign in Chechnya, documenting widespread abuse of civilians by government troops.
An exclusive, a smartly-handled breaking news, or reporting with an alternative perspective can raise the standing of a news organization and the journalist(s) concerned. That is a generally accepted rule of game in the journalistic field.
The quantity and size of positive coverage on the authorities has appeared to become the or another key factor when a danwei decides whether or not to promote a journalist. It may sound ridiculous but it is what is happening in Anhui province.
Nanfang Zhoumo (南方周末) yesterday reported Anhui's Personnel Office issued on 18 October a set of job promotion criteria for journalists based on positive coverage they generate on national media about the province.
According to the "(Trial) Standards and Conditions for Assessment of Professional and Technical Qualifications of Journalism Sector of Anhui Province"《安徽省新聞系列專業技術資格評審標準條件(試行)》, or the Trial Standards, while the numbers of essays posted and awards received remain as quantifiable criteria, more indicators have been added.
In order to be promoted, senior reporters and editors are required to have no less than three articles, in which the Anhui province is favourably reported, published or broadcast by major central media every year.
A minimum of 30 a year is a must for those whose principal responsibility is to contribute news articles to these media. Chief reporters (主任記者) and chief editors (編輯評定) with the same responsibility have to hit a target of 20 submissions.
The Trial Standards state that each positive-coverage item will be at least 500 characters or 20 seconds (for TV or radio reporters) in length. Major central media are defined as including China Daily, Guangming Ribao (光明日報), China Central People's Radio Station (中央人民廣播電台) and China Central Television (中央電視台).
The appendix of the document also stipulates the penalties. Those who make serious directional mistake (嚴重導向錯誤) in news reports will be disqualified in their applications for a promotion in that year and the following two years.
Some Anhui journalists interviewed are concerned about the possibility to get their submissions published by major central media, "it is easier for provincial media but very difficult for media at district levels".
Some even said local papers should primarily serve local people and the work to upgrade the province's image by placing news articles should be left to the province's promotion department.
The issuance of the Trial Standards has also attracted debate as to what constitutes positive coverage. A journalist, who has long written news commentaries, questioned some reports can hardly be categorized as positive or negative especially when they are covering different arguments of an issue.
An official responsible for this exercise at the Anhui province's Personnel Office said to be "positive" means to conform the nation's correct editorial direction (所謂正面就是符合國家正確的輿論導向) and local major achievements, activities, celebrities will be good subject matter for reporting.
"Don't just criticize on issues. Problems always exist. If [probelms] are reported too often, there would be negative impact," the official said, adding that "overall response towards to Trial Standards has been good".
The personnel office's officials told Nanfang Zhoumo the nation's standards for assessing journalists' professional ranking and qualifications were released in 1986 and those adopted by Anhui have also been issued for many years and are "not able to meet the new strategies and demands stressed by the central government".
It is an open secret that all news articles prepared by mainland media workers have to be subject to filtering by senior staff appointed by the communist party. As the PRC is heading to greater openness amid its integration into the international community, people expect rules and regulations governing the press not to be tightened, if not loosened. Some are optimistic that mainland journalists would enjoy more freedom.
The rise of journalism in the West since Industrial Revolution was indebted to the press' courage to unveil the dark side of society and call for social reform. Journalism also wielded similar influence in China in late Qing period and the early 20th century by voicing the grievances for people suppressed by those in power. This tradition has been suffering a setback amid political movements in the post-49 mainland.
Anhui's move to measure journalists' performance based on the count of positive news and put this practice up explicitly in writing best reflects the typical course of "three steps forward but two steps back" of the media scene in mainland China. This time, it is not just press censorship but also punishment, deprivation of rights to promotion, that would follow.
With memory of the crackdown on editors of Bing Dian and China Youth Daily remaining afresh, it won't be surprising if authorities in the rest of the nation would take Anhui as a model.Related Nanfang Zhoumo report entitled '為何要在中央級媒體發“正面報道”'
Commuters using Guangzhou's subway can now utilise their time in train compartments by flipping through Yang Cheng Ditie Bao (羊城地鐵報), or YCDTB, mainland China's first free daily newspaper, launched on 1 October 2006.
The free paper is targeting the 800,000 passengers of the city's underground rail system each day. The readership is forecasted to grow to about 2.5 million commuters by 2010 when the massive rail network will branch out to comprise nine lines, compared with four lines today.
In the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in the province of Guangdong, competition between free and paid papers has been a matter of life and death.
While Metro Daily, Headline Daily and AM730, the three free dailies for users of Hong Kong's mass transit railway, are accused of threatening the income of traditional papers, similar case has yet to be seen in Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong.
Three weeks after making its debut with a circulation hitting 200,000 copies, YCDTB has not been too successful in luring advertisers. "Formal" advertisements took no space of the 24-page, tabloid sized paper published on 23 October, although it has been a widespread practice to pay for promotional materials placed the way news is reported in mainland media publications. However, unless the publisher is willing to release relevant information, it would be hard to judge if YCDTB would be making any profit.
The free paper is believed to have strong financial backup as it is jointly published and distributed by Guangzhou Daily Press Group (廣州日報報業集團) and Guangzhou Metro Corporation (廣州市地下鐵道總公司).
The former, founded in 1996, is mainland China's first newspaper group, which also owns a variety of publications including newspapers Guangzhou Daily (廣州日報), Information Times (信息時報) and Guangzhou Soccer (足球報) , and monthly Nanfengchang Magazine (南風窗). The latter speaks for itself as a company that operates the Guangzhou subway.
The purpose behind the creation of YCDTB is multi-faceted, according to Chen Jianhua, member of the Standing Committee and head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Guangzhou Municipal Committee.
It provides a supplementary type of newspaper to the PRC market and is needed by a special group of people in society, Chen said, adding that "we want the subway newspaper to become a platform for publicizing the party's voice and a bridge communicating the government to the public" and "provide strong media support for Guangzhou's modernization initiative".
With a political mission to accomplish, there is little doubt, YCDTB is born and looks set to sustain despite an apparent lack of advertising income. It is in particular true given that its parent Guangzhou Daily Press Group is a leader of the mainland's media scene, recording a total income of 1.8 billion yuan and total assets valued at 4.9 billion yuan for 2003.
YCDTB may not end up being a liability of the news group. It may defy the destiny of many state-owned enterprises if its reader basis becomes broad enough to attract advertisers. But, like Hong Kong's Metro Daily, it takes time to get mature.
The subways of many leading cities in the world have their free papers. The first one, since established in Europe in 1995, has proliferated to 21 cities in 19 countries with a combined circulation of 7 million.
Printed neatly in colour, YCDTB primarily has three content components - news information, consumer information and the feature page - and therefore every advantage to become popular.
The challenge ahead would be for it to stay away from the uninteresting tone and subject matter long favoured by the Communist Party when promoting government policies. With Xinhua having lately been vested with more power to scrutinize press materials disseminated within the mainland, YCDTB, while being free of charge, is not likely to be free from ideological control.
How many would be interested in reading word by word the prospectus of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China which is thick as a Yellow page? However, its circulation has exceeded Harry Porter, the bestseller.
With the English and Chinese versions printed separately, the document for the initial public offering (IPO) of the bank has been halved. With eIPO subscription method in place, the printing volume of the document has been reduced to below 260,000 copies, the volume of the prospectus for Bank of China listed last June.
Still, a record of about 1 million Hong Kong people have subscribed to the shares.
It is believed an overwhelming minority of them have read the offering document of a stock on which they bet at least HK$3,000, the per lot price, before they made the investing decision.
The very expensive, mostly printed and most widely distributed yet least read book on Earth is it.
As many as 1 to 1.5 million people voted in the Legislative Council election in 2004 in Hong Kong. Democratic activists in this island city have found it a headache to prove to the SAR and Beijing leaders that people want the legislature and head of government be returned by universal suffrage. It is difficult to do it in a massive scale and to ensure fairness, finish the counting process within a short period of time.
Today, a big bank’s IPO is probably more universal than an election through universal suffrage and hence an ideal way to gauge public views.
So, would a "convenient truth" about what is in the ordinary people's mind have been secured if a referendum had been conducted by inserting in the prospectus, together with the ICBC subscription form, a form for citizens to tick either one of the boxes of agreeing or disagreeing with fully directly electing the LegCo and HKSARCE? How about adding this question online after the banks or brokers asking clients if they need margin financing to boost their IPO subscription – instant and nearly effortless? Or to measure by result, the more the new stock rises on its debut, the more the support people have for direction election, and vice versa?
Doesn't it sound more accurate than ten university opinion surveys, each with 1,000 samples?
Furthermore, to be fair with our mainland counterparts, the exercise should be extended to the vast mainland where a much bigger size of the ICBC listing as an A share is being carried out. Let people get a feel of democracy through an IPO – a magical idea aspires to surpass the UK and catch up with the USA (超英趕美), also a goal set by former chairman Mao decades ago.
All in all, autumn is almost gone. It's time to sing a late 2006 rhapsody. To create ballot boxes at the receiving banks is as difficult as opening an ICBC branch on Pluto.
Recent reshuffle at the top management of China Youth Daily, or CYD, was widely reported and said to be a full stop to the controversy surrounding the shutdown and reopening of Bing Dian, or Freezing Point, and the sacking of Li Datong (李大同), the then weekly's chief editor, earlier this year.
Former publisher of the paper, Wang Hongyou (王宏猷) will concentrate on party secretary work and be replaced by deputy publisher Xu Wenxin (徐文新). The duty of former CYD chief editor Li Erliang (李而亮) has been taken over by executive deputy chief editor Chen Xiaochuan (陳小川) . Chen is also the editor of Bing Dian. The reason behind Li's departure and where he is going to remains unknown.According to some media reports which quoted "internal sources", the personnel changes are "to put an end to the controversy [about Bing Dian]", and Li Erliang was removed from CYD for "revealing too much news from top level sources" when handling the Bing Dian incident and for apporving the publication of a problematic article by Bing Dian.Now, what is key is whether Xu and Chen have been assigned any special duty of clearing up the weekly and whether this would be done by tightening of control over it by CYD. To many, CYD's value lies on the fact that it has more courage than its industry counterparts to publish, over the years, news reports that uncover social reality such as grassroots hardship and official corruption. Bing Dian has played a significant role in helping to make this come true through its in-depth weekly featue stories. In other words, CYD earns its reputation for speaking out the truth at certain times of sensitivity, a media norm which is rare in the mainland but crucial if the country is to move towards being an open society.As the reshuffle looks like a top-down initiaive, the near-term prospect of CYD and Bing Dian is likely to be frozen. A probable scenario is that the new hands in charge would bring new ideas to the operation and even the editorial stance of the paper and the weekly. If any, it would take time for the changes to be made and felt. At least for the time being, readers would find the publications' editorial positions blurred. Controversial articles relating to the Bing Dian incident Background of the incident
- Amid widespread domestic and overseas debates on the closure and resumption of Bing Dian early this year, Chen took the place of Li Datong and has since been in charge of the magazine. Li Erliang, who managed to stay on in the crisis, has been working at the paper since December 2004.
- Bing Dian was allegedly shut down by CYD for featuring of an article by Zhongshan University professor Yuan Weishi (袁偉時) which had criticised history education by mainland school textbooks. Bing Dian is a weekly supplement in the China Youth Daily, which is affiliated to the Communist Party Youth League.
