A new sinister form of censorship in China

["Richard M. Smith" <rms () computerbytesman com>]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/24/AR2007012402
061_pf.html
 
Blackmailing By Journalists In China Seen As 'Frequent'


By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, January 25, 2007; A01




SHENZHEN, China
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/countries/china.html?nav=el>  --
At 9 p.m. in a dark Shenzhen parking lot, Bai Xiuyu handed over a plain
brown envelope containing 15,000 Chinese yuan, the equivalent of nearly
$2,000, in what was supposed to be a discreet blackmail payment to a local
reporter.

Hidden in Bai's car, Gou Hua, Shenzhen bureau chief for the Southern
Metropolitan Daily, watched the scene unfold and recorded the transaction
with his cellphone camera. His interest was more than journalistic; the
reporter receiving the payoff was Zhou Yu, a 29-year-old newcomer to Gou's
own bureau.

To his consternation, what Gou saw the evening of Sept. 21 was another
instance of the blackmail journalism metastasizing through China's news
media. Bai's money was supposed to buy silence on alleged wrongdoing at her
health clinic in this southern Chinese city. But more generally, journalists
and officials say, Chinese reporters are demanding such hush money with
increasing regularity from businesses and government agencies in exchange
for the withholding of unfavorable news.

"It's very, very frequent," said Ma Yunlong, an editor whose newspaper
exposed an instance of extravagant extortion in central Henan province in
2005. Ma said the case involved 480 reporters and others pretending to be
reporters who asked for "shut-up fees" to keep news of a mine flood out of
the public eye.

In many ways, blackmail journalism grew naturally out of a system in which
Communist Party censors control the news rigorously, barring reports that
could be seen as unfavorable to the party or contrary to the government's
political goals. If the ruling party distorts the news for political
reasons, blackmailing reporters have concluded, why wouldn't they do it
themselves for financial reasons?

In addition, local party officials, long used to manipulating information,
have been complicit in the payoff system when it suits their needs. In the
everybody-does-it atmosphere, even non-reporters have found ways to get in
on the take by posing as journalists.

...

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