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February 16, 2005

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Overly Censortive

Hamish McDonald from the Sydney Morning Herald reports on the Liaoning mine blast under the headline Beijing gags local media after mine blast kills 203:

Local reports said Chinese authorities ordered a news blackout on the disaster, tightening its grip on press freedom.
Interesting. Xinhua today reports on the mine blast, the rescue work, the rising death toll and has a series of photos from the rescue. There are plenty of other official Chinese media sites also covering the blast. Most curiously later in the same SMH article Mr. McDonald says:
Chinese media said 180 mine rescue specialists had been sent to the mine in the heart of the industrial "rust belt" in the region once known as Manchuria.
Doesn't look like much of a media blackout to me. Do the SMH's headline writers read the articles? Do the SMH editors read the stories for consistency? Does Hamish McDonald? It's easy to trot out the "China censorship" angle for any story. It would help if it was true.

 posted by Simon on 02.16.05 at 01:27 PM in the




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Comments:

The way Chinese is dealing with its own media is often confusing. What most likely has happened is that local media were required to bring only to news from Xinhua, so the news could be controlled, not stopped.
Benjamin Liebman gives in the Columbia Law Review of last months an excellent overview of the system. I have been reviewing his work on my weblog for those who are really interested in those subtleties.

 posted by: Fons Tuinstra on 02.16.05 at 03:34 PM [permalink]

Thanks Fons - interesting article.

 posted by: Simon on 02.16.05 at 05:58 PM [permalink]

Come on ... if there is anything interesting going on in china, the PRC will put a gag order on it ... right? I mean, SMH has a fill in the blank template for these stories. I guess they forgot to check the AP wire first, eh?

 posted by: mdmhvonpa on 02.17.05 at 04:41 AM [permalink]

Fons is probably right. Local media have been blocked from reporting anything but the party line - a form of censorship. Also, the Xinhua stories are in english for foreigners (just like those on Zhao Ziyang). There is a Xinhua Domestic Service in Chinese - has that the same coverage?

 posted by: dylan on 02.17.05 at 10:06 AM [permalink]




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