Doug PollardJournalists prise China open
August 15th 2008 00:47
Free Tibet Protest in London
The Chinese government is discovering what it means to be open to press scrutiny, and are not enjoying the process much, it would seem.
Unused to having their decisions publicly questioned, they’re getting quite testy with journalists who expected the same freedom to report that they have in most Western countries (most of the time).
In 2001 Beijing Olympic vice-president Wang Wei said: "We will give the media complete freedom to report when they come to China."
Yesterday his tune was somewhat different.
"We welcome the people and the colleagues of the Olympic Games with us and we welcome suggestions that are constructive advice from these people, all kinds of peoples. But the foreign press, you come here to pick, critically dig into details, but that doesn't mean we don't fulfil on our promises. I did not say China would promise to do whatever; I did say the Games would open up the horizons of China," said Wang.
He then went on to make a number of statements at odds with the facts. For example, he claimed that a British journalist, briefly detained by Chinese police for covering a pro-Tibet protest, had been released as soon as he had shown his credentials.
Footage aired worldwide, however, clearly showed that Chinese police repeatedly ignored his credentials and persisted in asking him why he supported Tibet.
Either Wang doesn’t watch CNN, BBC, etc., or he is so used to controlling the news that he does not understand how the embarrassing footage could possibly have made it into the public arena.
He didn’t know anything about a Guardian cameraman being assaulted by officials, either. Maybe even he is blocked by his own censors from seeing YouTube, where footage of both incidents is posted.
The Olympics is the first major event held in Communist China which is not entirely controlled by the Communist Party. Although the IOC are kowtowing to the regime more than we would like, it isn’t totally under Chinese control.
And the press are doing what a free press does best. Although often trivial, irritating and stupid, with an inflated sense of their own importance (and I speak here as a journalist myself) it’s good to know that some journalists can rise to the occasion.
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