Media explosion tests China's control

By Quentin Sommerville | BBC News
October 26, 2006

At the editorial meeting at the influential newspaper Beijing Youth Daily, the morning news list is put together without too much discussion.

The editorial team already know the most important stories to include, thanks to the government's powerful news agency, Xinhua.

But according to Zhao Wei, the paper's home news editor, the only official requirement on her and her colleagues is to be responsible journalists.

"You might call it censorship, but it's not," she said.

"Editors get a lot of training, so they know where the boundaries are. What you can and can't print, you can't violate the constitution, you can't break the law and you can't publish stories that aren't true or affect social stability."

But Li Datong, the former editor of a high-profile magazine, Freezing Point, takes a different view.

"Editors in China don't edit, they're censors," he said.

"Every day, they make decisions on what not to publish, rather than what to publish. They have to attend at least one meeting a week at the central propaganda department where they're told what not to report," he added.

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