The day after a flurry of deadlines, as I lie in bed with some time on my hands, there was one last thought on impartiality I wanted to commit to digital paper.
And appropriately enough, it’s about space and time.
If you’ve seen our snazy little presentation you may have seen John Snow’s comments about impartiality.
But what I had to leave out (due to considerations of space and time) were his thoughts on the time in which journalists have to turn around stories now.
Where once a correspondent would have had a few days to report on a conflict, to work out what was going on, and to use his or her judgement, now they have hours.
The very same tools that make communication easier and quicker, seem to risk us giving up our most valuable tools of all – our intellects and judgement.
We simply do not feel that we have the time and space to make judgement calls about stories. And so, perhaps by degrees, journalism has fallen back on balance as a way of dealing with speed.
Because, if you simply state what one side says, and then the other side, you cannot be held liable as a journalist. You escape the dangers of defamation, you satisfy your bosses, and you do it quickly.
But where is the pleasure of truly having understood and explained a story?
None of this is to say that impartiality isn’t useful or important. Impartiality is not the same as balance, although the two do get confused.
And it’s not to say that journalists should be constantly peddling their opinions.
Judgement is about looking with a clear head at both the facts on the ground and the bigger picture, and being able to see what’s going on. It’s not about RSS feeds and satellite links, and more more more faster faster faster. It’s a journalist with a pen and paper, and twenty minute to gather their thoughts. It’s sitting down on a Saturday morning with a well written, well researched newspaper, and a cup of coffee.
It’s time and space to think.
And more often than not, it only comes along after your deadline has passed…
Now, today, it’s much better, because you can choose whether to be a Chinese Communist Party Member when working in CCTV or other 50 stations. And reporters can do some stories critical of the government now, such as this program show–Criticism of the law.
And here is the latest example, Chinese Premier Wen’s speech in Cambridge last month, his speech was interrupted as a student throwing shoes to him, honestly, it wouldn’t be broadcasted if it happened five or ten years ago, because it’s not on the side of government. But this was shown on CCTV, and over one billion people were able to see it.
However, China has just one political party, so it’s impossible to be absolutely impartial, especially when reporting issues on Tibet or Taiwan, for instance.
I hope the impartiality of Chinese media will get better and better in the future.And CCTV now have over 10.000 media workers, including many reporters from different countries, if you have opportunity to come to China for reporting, I can be your free translator. And I hope that there will be more opportunities for us to communicate with each other.^^
As my father said, we can always learn a lot from the people who have a different perspective from you. It’s true that I have learnt a lot from my presentation group and people around me this year. From Tom, Ali and Owen, I know of the media impartiality’s concept, reglulation, as well as the difference between western and eastern countries, teaching me how to be a world journalist.
Honesty, I’m not get used to debate during class, as we have a different teaching methed in Asian countries, and I was a flight attendant before, we did a lot of trainings about how to smile and never debate with passengers. So It’s a little difficult for me to change this. Although I worked in a TV station for some time, I’m too shy sometimes, and I can’t express my feeling very well.
Hope you can understand me and thank you very much for helping me sort out difficulties in my presentation and study. I think I’m very lucky to meet you in Falmouth this year.
The biggest influence of Chinese media for last fifty years is the famous China Culture Revolution. It lasted from 1966 to 1976, about 10 years. In my mind, it’s a regrettable time, because all of students couldn’t go to school or universities during that time, instead, they had to go to countryside to do farm work.
Here is a vedio showing a kind of dance which everyone have to learn at that time, and the dance means you’re always loyal to the government, so it’s called loyalty dancing.
It’s also a scary time, as all the people, especially reporters, had to be extremely carefully about what they say both in public and private, otherwise, you will be charged with counterrevolutionary and maybe you will die. So there was no impartiality at all. Let’s have a look. Many culture was destroyed and Chinese vice president died during Culture Revolution. You can see in this video.It is in English.
At that time, the media was totally closed and strictly regulated by the government. All they can do was broadcasting some dance and song of praising the president.
The Culture Revolution ended in 1976 and after that, China carried out the reform of opening up, but culture had such a huge influence and the new generation of 1980s as me, haven’t been born yet, so the media also had no freedom of speech, so no impartiality. The CCTV was the only TV station and was regulated by military force. The presenters and reporters even couldn’t cry on TV, otherwise, they would lose the job. Here is example. She is the No.1 presenter in China in 1980s, She lost the job just because she cried when broadcasting a disaster. At that day, the live program was cut just after her cry and we never see her on CCTV. Unfortunately, I can’t find any video of her last show from the internet.
For your viewing pleasure…please see the link below for the slides from our presentation.
Media On the Fence – 26.02.09 Presentation on Impartiality
Tom, Ali, Owen and Daphne
== Newspapers ==
*National*
☆People’s Daily 《人民日报》 – National voice of the Party. Also available in an English version.
☆China Youth Daily 《中国青年报》
☆Guangming Daily 《光明日报》
Guangming Online also has a comprehensive index of newspapers and media groups.
Southern Media Group
- Southern Metropolitan Daily 《南方都市报》
- Southern Weekend 《南方周末》 – known for investigative exposes and a revolving door that lands editors in jail
*Beijing*
Beijing Youth Daily Group
- Beijing Youth Daily 《北京青年报》
- (Legal) Mirror 《法制晚报》 (they’ve taken ‘Mirror’ off the nameplate and masthead recently)
- The First 《竞报》
Beijing Daily Group
- ☆Beijing Daily《北京日报》
- Beijing Morning Post 《北京晨报》
- Beijing Evening News 《北京晚报》 current day accessible off http://www.beijingdaily.com.cn/ front page
- Their intro page says that The First is part of this group, but Beijing Youth Daily also lists it.
- Beijing Daily Messenger 《信报》
The Beijing News 《新京报》 – Southern Media Group and Guangming Daily venture; soon to be sold to the Beijing Youth Daily Group. On a Quest to become the New York Times of China.
Beijing Times 《京华时报》 – People’s Daily group
*Shanghai*
Wenhui-Xinmin United Press Group
- Xinmin Evening News 《新民晚报》
- Oriental Morning Post 《东方早报》
☆Jiefang Daily 《解放日报》
*Elsewhere*
Chongqing Evening News 《重庆晚报》
Yangcheng Evening News (Guangzhou) 《羊城晚报》
== Portals ==
☆Xinhuanet 新华网
Sina 新浪网 – News
- China News
- Entertainment
- Most commented news articles:
Netease 网易 – News
Sohu 搜狐 – News
- Entertainment
- Media Map Incredible index of local publications across the country
Tom – News
- Entertainment
Eastday 东方网
== Magazines ==
*News*
☆Outlook 《瞭望新闻周刊》 Articles hosted on Xinhuanet.com
☆Oriental Outlook 《瞭望东方周刊》 – Outlook spinoff also run by Xinhua; it’s meant to be a quasi-independent, “alternative” news-weekly.
Xinmin Weekly 《新民周刊》
Caijing 《财经》
- English Newsletter
China Newsweek 《中国新闻周刊》
☆Globe 《环球》 Xinhua News Agency magazine
New Weekly 《新周刊》
New Times Weekly 《新世纪周刊》
Life Week《三联生活周刊》 (also on Sina)
Worldview 《看世界》
Window on the South 《南风窗》
Southern People Weekly 《南方人物周刊》
Phoenix Weekly 《凤凰周刊》 (Not sure if this link will work; it might be date or session tied)
*Lifestyle*
Modern Media
- Modern Weekly 《周末画报》
- Modern Media also publishes The Outlook Magazine 《新视线》 and City Magazine 《号外》.
Trends Group
- FHM 《男人装》
- Cosmo 《时尚·COSMOPOLITAN》
- Esquire 《时尚·ESQUIRE》
- The group also publishes Bazaar, National Geographic Traveler, Men’s Health, Good Housekeeping, etc.
mENbox 《时尚君子》
Southern Media Group (also Southern People Weekly above and several newspapers)
- Ma(n)gazine 《名牌》 “mangazine·名牌 is the only fashion magazine in China whose target readers are no one but highclass men in the society. It aims to start a elite time and define the elite class in China.”
- City Pictorial (is this Fashion?) 《城市画报》
Glamour Group:
- Men’s Style 《魅力先生》
- Figure 《健体风尚》 (Geez! Check out the CD they’re giving away with this one!
- Glamour 《魅力风尚》
—but these pages are pretty much empty. Use the publisher’s front page
Gentlemen 《君子风尚》
Rayli 《瑞丽》 (fashion magazine empire, flagship publication Rayli is probably the Chinese glossy magazine with the highest circulation nationwide)
ViVi 《昕薇》
WomanFriend Group 《女友》 (popular series of girly-girl magazines but their website hasn’t updated in quite a while)
- Style 《女友花园版》
- Cute 《女友校园版》 – college edition
- Love 《女友家园版》 – home edition
- Man (but unknown if anyone actually reads the thing) and others
Voyage (New Traveler) 《新旅行》
Touch 《TOUCH双休日潮流周刊》
Banana 《演艺周刊》
OK!《OK!》
== Television ==
☆ China Central Televison 中央电视台
- Channel 1: General News. This channel produces the main evening news broadcast, and usually has the first run of serious, patriotic TV series.
- Channel 2: Business.
- Channel 3: Arts.
- Channel 4: International (Chinese language)
- Channel 5: Sports
- Channel 6: Movies
- Channel 7: Military and Agriculture (runs kids’ programs during the afternoon)
- Channel 8: Dramatic series
- Channel 9: International (English propaganda)
- Channel 10: Education
- Channel 11: Peking Opera
- Channel 12: Society and Law
- In addition to the numbered channels, there are also:
- 24-hour news
- Children’s channel
- Music
- French and Spanish – dubbed rebroadcasts of CCTV 4 and 9
Phoenix TV and Phoenix News & Finance 凤凰卫视/凤凰资讯 – Mandarin language broadcasts out of Hong Kong. Program guide is available.
StarTV 星空卫视: Product of Rupert Murdoch’s Asia arm, Star Group Ltd. Runs shameless knockoffs of western TV, crass humor shows from Taiwan, and old Hong Kong movies.
SunTV 阳光卫视: Reworked History channel programming, panel discussions from Chinese intellectuals, and infomercials.
Channel V: Music videos.
I can’t find any writen Chinese media Censorship, but there is a story which is discussed very often in the internet.
The process of cease”China Business Post” publication
Step One: Origin
July 11, 2008, “China Business Post” reporter Fan Cui published a story named “The truth of striping 4,600,000,000 RMB (Chinese Yuan)of huge non-performing assets by Agricultural Bank of China branch in Changde “ , which reported the Agricultural Bank of China, Changde Branch striped non-performing assets of 4.621 billion yuan irregularly. And the insightful background of this report was “Agricultural Bank of China started to strip non-performing assets 800 billion RMB(Chinese Yuan).”
The second step, objection
August 11, 2008, after “China Business Post”published the story a full month later,it received a letter from the Agricultural Bank of China . The letter said that the Agriculture Bank of China didn’t agree the report and doubted the motivation behind the reporting. In the meantime, Agriculture Bank of China requested some requirement for the “China Bussiness Post” to meet.
What are the requirements? Because we can’t see this letter, so we do not know. However, “China Bussiness Post” replied, “You Bank reported it to the relevant publicity management sector of the government after seeing the story”, from this, we can know that the Agricultural Bank of China tried to stop the reporting through the Propaganda Department of the government. Of course, I only guess but not sure.
The third step is response
“China Business Post” replied after receiving the letter of Agricultural Bank of China , saying that “Although the details of truth may be not all accurate, but the reason of the report is justice, rather than malicious.” And “China Bussiness Post” decided to ask other reporters to edit comprehensive review about this report, (the original reporter Fan Cui should be avoided in the review process) … … At the same time, in the review process, the newspaper would like to collect the relevant information to send the Agriculture Band of China. “
The fourth step: to cease publication
But then, many people was shocked by the result,because I think that if reports are not true, the Agricultural Bank may require “China Business Post” to apology and it can also prosecute the paper, however, the final result is:
As “China Business Post”published a false report this year, the authority identified it as the violation of “news-gathering procedures(such as the approval) need to fulfill before the formal interview,” ”when reporting significant, sensitive news, the media organization needs to exchange the views to the report target” and other news propaganda discipline, leading to maladministration.
Therefore, the authorities decided to cease the publication of China Business Post for three months to rectify the mistake.
In practise, media is the mouth and ear of public.Therefore,media has to care the public audience, and try to find a balance between it and the impartiality, although it is difficult to get. So, Chinese media has to care most of Chinese audience, to on the side of the majority.For instance, in China, most people never forgive Japanese, for the Japanese army killed millions of Chinese people during the second World War but Japanese government never admit it.This one of report by Chinese media:
“Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has reaffirmed his pledge to visit the controversial Yasukuni war shrine on the anniversary of Japan’s World War Two surrender next week.
Mr. Koizumi told a reporter Tuesday that his pledge is “still valid.” If he goes next week, it would fulfill a campaign promise he made in 2001 to visit the shrine on the August 15th anniversary of the surrender.
The prime minister has visited the shrine yearly since taking office, but never on August 15th. His visits to Yasukuni have always been controversial because convicted war criminals are among the dead enshrined there.
China and South Korea object to those visits because they say they glorify Japan’s wartime aggression in the region.”
On the other hand, if it is reported by the Japanese media, they must on the side of Japan as there were lots of Japanese people soldiers died at that time and they think that they should repect the dead soldiers, who are usually respected as heros in Japan.
At the same time, most Chinese people don’t want Taiwan to be independent, so Chinese media usually on the side of Chinese government because journalists who report on the issue don’t admit Taiwan’s independence,too.In order to explain the reason, I have to talk about a little of Chinese history.
Around 1930s and 1940s, China had two major political parties, one is Communist party, and the other is Nationalist Party,which is Taiwan’s political party now.During 1945-1949, it is the time of National War between these two political parties.And Nationalist party moved to Taiwan after National War because it was defeated.That is the origin reason why there is bad relationship between China and Taiwan.And because of culture difference an each place’s patriotic education, Chinese and Taiwanese don’t like each other sometimes.Therefore,Chinese media usually on the side of the government and Taiwanese media on the side its own political party,because they both have to care their audience.And it is true that most Chinese don’t admit Taiwan’s independence while most Taiwanese want Taiwan to be independent.
This is a TV bulletin by Taiwanese media says that Chinese government suppress the Taiwan’s willing to join WHO(World Heath Organization).And they said that Chinese government was vety rude to them.We can see at the end it is said that say no to China and say yes to Taiwan.
And it is a bulletin of CCTV English Channel, reporting President Hu and President Bush’s talk on Taiwan and Tibet issue.
Finally, i think China today is the outcome of its history and culture, we can’t say wether it is wrong or right of Chinese media.And we all can’t change it to be the same as American media or other media in a short time.It’s the same as you can’t change a Asian person’s way of thinking to be a western way of thinking in a minute. What I can do is finding the difference and learn from it.
After watching the new of Lalai Lama on BBC yesterday, I had a deep thought about the it.
Dalai Lama at critical crossroads -BBC
First of all, I find it really different from the report of China.From BBC,I think it in the attitude that China should protect Tibetan Culture and give them human right, but from Chinese media, it said Tibetan’s life is getting much better now and DaLai Lama is just the minority of Tibetan who want to indepent from China.Well, is it all impartial? I don’t know, as a Han Chinese, I have never been to Tibet , and it’s true only a few people can go there because its geography environment, even British and Chinese journalists who did the report on Tibet.
From BBC,Dalai Lama said that Chinese government want the Tibetan Culture to extinct, because Chinese authority seeking to change the ethnic mix of Tibet and erode Tibetan culture, language and religion with a massive influx of ethnic Han Chinese and a system of “patriotic re-education”.Possibly, some Tibetan people don’t want to learn Mandarin, they don’t accept Han Chinese Culture but there is not enough communication between Han Chinese and Tibetan people.
In China, there are fifty-six ethnic groups, but 90% of people are Han Chinese, Tibetan is just one of minorty groups, that’s why they usually be ignored by other people. At the same time, most journalists as well as government officers are Han Chinese, so there position is in the side of Han Chinese. Tibetan people are very poor because of geography enviroment, they can’t have export bussiness to develop economy and before Chinese government,Tibet was serf system,which was really scary.
And now Chinese government give them money so they can get education service free, and the government also sends lots of Han Chinese teachers there to teach them Mandarin.I think that’s why some people think Chinese government wants Tibetan culture to extinct.
Honestly, there is discrimination on minority ethnic people in China, because our Han Chinese always think we are the best in China. Han Chinese can get the best education and have good financial status in China,and as every minority has a completely different language from Mandarin, sometimes Han Chinese can’t even communicate with them.And it is true that minority ethnic are more difficult to find a good job.
In a word, I think the ethnic group and language difference are the fundamental reason that why it is difficult for Chinese media to be impatial on Tibet issue.And I will talk about the culture difference which results in partiality later.
We did our final presentation on the findings of this blog on 26th February and on the whole I think it went pretty well. The opening sequence, where we did a split screen, with each of us pretending to be a different broadcaster – The BBC, Fox News, China Today and Al Jazeera was one of my favourite ideas that came out of the presentation. I think it allowed us to make our point ‘With so many voices…who do you trust?’ in a way that created an impact and grabbed the attention of our audience.
Myself and Tom started off the presentation by presenting different sides of the debate on impartiality, which in itself ensured that our presentation was impartial. Although Tom argued that you can’t really be impartial in news broadcasting, I argued that regulation, in particular light touch regulation ensures that broadcasters do attempt to stick to the ideal of impartiality and don’t stray too far from the norm. Owen and Daphne’s parts in the presentation worked really well because we then had two very different case studies on how impartiality and bias are viewed differently in the media in America and China.
The most nerve-wracking part of the presentation for me was the question time after our presentation, which gave our course-mates a chance to really grill us! We compared the American to the English model of impartiality which took up a lot of the debate, and explored how the role of a correspondent compared to a newsreader can differ in their approach to impartiality, or the allowance they are given to express opinion. I feel that our group held ourselves well in the question and answer session, which was a mark of how much preparation and effort had gone in to our presentation.
For me, it was really interesting to see what other people on the course felt about impartiality, since myself, Tom, Owen and Daphne had really only been able to discuss it amongst ourselves since Christmas. And, although we didn’t seem to come to any clear, definite conclusion on how impartial broadcasters should be, I feel that this was a positive outcome, because it reflected the debate and blurred boundaries around the issue. Impartiality is not a simple topic to digest.
What researching this topic has done for all of us in the group, is that it has made us more self-aware, and conscious of the fact that we do not come in to the media without opinions shaped by our backgrounds. As John Snow said in the clip from Tom’s part of the presentation, the way in which we express ourselves and the opinions we hold are shaped by whether we are male or female, white or black, working or upper class for example. Therefore I found this blog, and the research we did for the presentation has opened my eyes to the fact that I may view the world differently from my peers.
My own feeling is that light touch regulation of impartiality is needed. We need it to prevent broadcasters from favouring one side over the other and getting it wrong. But broadcasters must also retain the human element in journalism, and not forget the facts of a story in a desperate bid to ensure balance. Journalists must tell the story fairly, but they must also make the audience care.
tomallan28
Ali Gibson
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