Freedom of Press: October 2006 Archives
By REPORTERS SANS FRONTIERES - REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS
October 28, 2006
Wung Huo, the Beijing correspondent of the Hong Kong-based Oriental Daily newspaper, was beaten by security guards in the Chinese Congress in Beijing yesterday while covering an international beauty contest taking place inside the People’s Congress.
“This latest incident, involving security guards inside one of China’s leading institutions, illustrates the kind of risk reporters will be exposed to during the Olympic Games,” Reporters Without Borders said. “There is an urgent need for sanctions to be taken against police officers and security guards who deliberate attack journalists.”
Security guards told the accredited photographers covering the Miss International contest they were too close to the stage and began to push them back by force. Wung was pushed into a corner and beaten by at least one guard, sustaining head wounds and a nose fracture. The blows only came to an end when another guard shouted: “Stop the beating! The guests are arriving.”
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.
Special to WORLDTRIBUNE.COM
October 10, 2006
China’s Communist Party has ordered media outlets to tone down reporting on the financial scandal that led to the dismissal of Shanghai Communist Party leader Chen Liangyu.
The scandal is expected to implicate other senior Communist Party officials, including possibly even members of the eight-member ruling Standing Committee of the Politburo, the collective dictatorship that controls the government and military.
The Central Propaganda Department instructed Mainland media to take a low profile in reporting the case. In a memo, the department prohibited media from discussing “the party line and party connection” in covering the case.
Only news of the scandal released by the official news agency Xinhua should be published.
"No unauthorized or sensational reports shall be allowed. All speculative and exaggerative reports on Chen should stop," noted the nine-point circular from the Central Propaganda Department.
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