CHINA
Media edicts recall China’s Maoist past
Published: May 14 2008 19:23 | Last updated: May 14 2008 19:23
To the casual observer, the blanket earthquake news coverage served up by China’s media over the past few days might suggest the nation’s thousands of newspapers and TV stations had been given a free hand to report its biggest natural disaster in decades.
Nothing could be further from the truth. From the first hours after the deadly tremor struck south-western Sichuan province on Monday, the ruling Communist party has been working hard to guide and control how its effects are reported.
A meeting of the party’s most powerful propaganda officials on Tuesday stressed the importance of “correct guidance of public opinion” and ordered a strengthening of political consciousness among journalists responsible for the task.
All frontline coverage of the disaster should “uphold unity and encourage stability” while “giving precedence to positive propaganda”, ordered Li Changchun, a member of the party’s supreme politburo standing committee.
Such edicts are a reminder that – in spite of a flourishing market economy, social liberalisation and a media revolution – the party still holds to the Maoist tenet that power depends on control of “two barrels”: that of the gun and the pen.
While China’s almost 2,000 state-owned newspapers and more than 2,000 television and radio stations are livelier than ever, censors retain the power to punish any journalist judged to depart from the editorial line.
What they say
‘Since the earthquake ... central propaganda departments and central important media have urgently mobilised in accordance with the deployment orders of the party centre and state council.
‘The People’s Daily, Xinhua News Agency, China National Radio and CCTV quickly dispatched their crack troops and brilliant generals to report from the frontline of the disaster’ Xinhua news agency report on a meeting of top Communist party propaganda officials
‘Feeling deep love, Wen Jiabao goes to see the disaster-hit masses’ Headline to a story on the premier’s trip to the earthquake zone published on the front page of the People’s Daily newspaper.
‘The disaster-hit masses one after another told Wen Jiabao that the party and government’s concern for them meant they would certainly be able to overcome adversity ... ’From the same story
‘I'm tired of seeing that mournful face of Wen XX. Where are the disaster victims?’
‘wmyu’, poster to the Tianya discussion website
‘January 25: snowstorm equals natural disaster – 1+2+5=8
March 14: bald Tibetans equal manmade disaster – 3+1+4=8
May 12: earthquake equals seismic disaster – 5+1+2=8
8.8.08: the Olympics. Coincidence?’
Anonymous note circulated on the internet
After recent months darkened by snowstorms, unrest in Tibetan areas and now a tremor of the magnitude 7.9, officials preparing to host the Olympic Games in August have little motive to ease controls.
“The leadership is very, very cautious at the moment,” says Joseph Cheng of Hong Kong’s City University. “This is a pretty critical moment ... I think they understand that the people are a bit jittery.”
Mr Li’s instructions are having an effect. Over the past two days, dominant state broadcaster China Central Television and government news agency Xinhua have missed no opportunity to highlight a tour of the earthquake zone by Wen Jiabao, China’s premier.
Accounts of his trip have been leavened with coverage featuring the kind of “moving scenes” of soldiers and police “leading from the front, bearing all hardships and fearing no sacrifice” demanded by Mr Li.
Reporters have also obediently highlighted the “effective and diligent work” of local officials, “fully reflecting the socialist spirit of mutual assistance”.
But to focus only on such Maoist reportage would be to miss important changes in the way China manages the news. Even propaganda standard bearers such as CCTV and Xinhua offer a range of content and have been quick to learn reporting tricks such as live broadcasts and online slideshows.
Censors tolerate relatively free internet debate on many topics, though sites that host content seen as politically threatening are often fined, and authors detained.
Leaders now stress the need for greater government “transparency” – in part in reaction to the failure of official efforts to cover up the deadly Sars epidemic in 2003.
Indeed, this week’s earthquake coverage is a world away from the media blackout around the northern city of Tangshan after it suffered the worst earthquake of modern times in 1976.
Government “openness” was the only way to quell socially destabilising rumours sparked by any natural disaster, the People’s Daily, official mouthpiece of the party, said. “Government departments cannot just hope that ‘rumours stop with a wise man’,” it said. “Members of the public are just ordinary people and they will naturally maintain an attitude of ‘better to believe it than to discount it’ even toward harmful information.”
Yet while much of the propaganda has laudable goals – promoting relief work, easing public fears and addressing ignorance about seismic events – it rankles some members of China’s increasingly cosmopolitan media audience.
Highlighting viewer distrust, some internet users scornfully distributed a CCTV clip appearing to show empty-handed athletes pretending to make donations to the relief effort.
Others complained after live internet broadcasts of earthquake news by a Sichuan television station were suddenly halted. Viewers said the station had been offering much more direct reporting from the disaster zone than CCTV.
Such disgruntlement will not move Mr Li and his comrades. At Tuesday’s meeting, reported by the People’s Daily, they announced “further strengthening” of “unified” media control.
“Central major news media must ... broadly mob ilise and lead cadres and the masses to implement the spirit of the central authorities and to throw themselves into earthquake relief work,” the meeting ordered.
●China Airlines, Taiwan’s national carrier, said it would transport 100 tonnes of tents, blankets and medical supplies to Chengdu on a flight approved by the two countries .
Additional reporting by Kerry Ma
No comments:
Post a Comment