Chinese Journalist-Bloggers:Online Expression Under Tight Control

While being a journalist in
China has never been easy option for those seeking a peaceful life, it has always been a relatively safe profession for journalists who avoid ‘certain grey areas’, it is safer to report in line with government expectation. 

It is easier for the Chinese reporters to tell what they really think. News can not be discovered on the newspapers, on the camera. They can post the comment in their blogs. That’s why Rui Chenggang ‘s forbidden city story are highly-clicked in mainland china. Now it has become a new trend for hundreds of thousands of mainland people subscribe these journalists’ blogs which investigate in-depth stories. Internet offers journalists’ space to speak their mind when traditional media has remained under tight control. The journalist-bloggers are impacting Chinese journalism to be more open forward the freedom of speech. 

 But, some argue that the golden age of political blogging and online expression on tough subjects are coming to an end in today’s
China under the government’s tighter control than before. I agree with it.  

For example, here’s a story about a sports journalist who do not support 2008 Olympics. The leading Chinese sports journalist had opened a blog merely to discuss whether or not even to boycott next year’s Olympics. The blog lasted about a week before it was shut down because of the Seventeenth Party Congress. In his original blog now named ‘Opposing the Olympics will not be allowed‘, he posted that police had come looking for him: 

[translation] “Six days later, this short-lived blog was then “harmonized”. A few days after that, the authorities showed up wanting to have a chat with me, get an idea about my ideological stance, social connections, who I’ve been in touch with. You could wait your whole life and never see big, tough me as nervous as I was then, but I was resolved: I didn’t feel I’d done anything wrong.

They started off nicely enough, saying my blog had been getting played up by some overseas media, asking if I knew. I said I didn’t know (I really didn’t). They said I’d been distorted and taken advantage of, that I’d become a victim. I said if people take advantage of me, that’s not my doing. They said the Olympics are so blah blah blah good for the people, I said it’s best if everyone maintains their own perspective. 

Back in the office, narcissistic little I went straight to Baidu, wanting to see how foreign media had taken advantage of me. I can’t search for foreign-language news, so I just found some Chinese-language reports, and they said it was for real, that my blog had been shut down by authorities because it didn’t support the Beijing Olympics.” 

The other Chinese journalists-bloggers who are well-known for posting “sensitive topics” suffer from being deleted or shut down. Li Yong, Daily news, reporter,
Beijing (shut down in protest against ongoing deletions).Chen Min, Southern Weekly, editor,
Guangzhou (ongoing post deletions).Yan Lieshan, Southern Weekly, editor,
Guangzhou (ongoing post deletions).