ABC Radio Australia: In China, Media are Still Controlled by Government [excerpt]

[...But most meaningful journalism has to be about the use and abuse of power

There are brave journalists that venture into this dangerous ground. But newspapers have been closed, and some people have lost their jobs, and more than two dozen were in jail at the end of last year...]

In his letter from China, an ABC correspondent notes that as China passed it's controversial anti-secession law this week, aimed at stopping any independence move by Taiwan, Chinese journalists showed themselves to be anything but impartial.

Presenter/Interviewer: John Taylor

TAYLOR: China is a country where ordinary people can be abused and locked up just because they hold political or religious opinions counter to the government.

Yet to the casual observer or tourist, the country looks free. People are busy doing their own thing, and appear content to be enjoying an improving standard of living.

But the chains of control are strong. It's just that they're mostly hidden.

One obvious area where they aren't, is the media. In 1989 during the Tiananmen protests in Beijing a column of journalists from the Communist Party's official newspaper marched into the crowds at Tiananmen Square. They held a banner 25 feet wide bearing the words - "Don't force us to lie".

It remains a telling insight despite the passage of 16 years. Communist control in China is inseparable from media control.

In my office, broadcasts of the BBC and CNN regularly go black when stories appear that the censors don't like.

Despite a proliferation of newspapers and magazines as China's economy opens up, news outlets are owned and closely monitored by the state. Supporting the ruling Communist Party is considered the media's key purpose.

Editors and bosses get instructions from China's propaganda officials of what stories are too sensitive to report and how others should be reported.

That's not to say that the media hasn't changed from the days of Mao - there are plenty of social interest and lifestyle type stories that are getting a run.

But most meaningful journalism has to be about the use and abuse of power

There are brave journalists that venture into this dangerous ground. But newspapers have been closed, and some people have lost their jobs, and more than two dozen were in jail at the end of last year.

[...]

Source http://www.abc.net.au/ra/asiapac/programs/s1327025.htm