III. Media and Journalists within and beyond the Communist Media System
III.3 Chinese and Czech Journalists Crossing the Line
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of keeping professional distance from the unfolding events. The most important media were quickly "liberated" by their own staff and the regime never managed - and actually never attempted - to bring them back under its own control, as it was busy collapsing. Not surprisingly, the leaders of the victorious Velvet Revolution let the journalists, who were one of their own, to keep the control over the media and blocked any possibility that some remaining pro-regime actors might deprive them of this control. The logical conclusion of this process was that quickly after the Velvet Revolution, many of the Czech newspapers became a private ownership of their staff.
III.3 Chinese and Czech Journalists Crossing the Line
According to media scholar Zhao Yuezhi, journalists in China play several roles: "They are lapdogs that kiss to please, and watchdogs that attack to protect; but deprived of autonomy and a mercy of a ruthless Party master, they are the system’s underdogs in the final analysis."207 Regarding the Tiananmen protests, she notes that they shared with students and intellectuals their anxieties about corrupt officials, newly rich entrepreneurs and their own declining socio-economic status. She also points out to their role in the protests themselves:
"At the height of the movement, many journalists, inspired by the students, marched on the streets to oppose Party’s ideological chiefs over media control. They championed a watchdog role over power holders, presenting themselves as a voice of the "people". Their sympathetic reporting of the student demonstrations helped to legitimate and disseminate the movement.
This unprecedented political activism, however, turned out to be short-lived. It was possible mainly because of a leadership split and the temporary breakdown of the Party’s chain of command within its propaganda apparatus."208
207 Zhao 2004, 43
208 Zhao 2004, 44
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In the words of Chinese journalists themselves:
Students and compatriots of all walks of life in the capital and nationwide:
We are editors and reporters at China Central TV. Since students in the capital began their petitions in mid-April, people everywhere have claimed that "CCTV stands facts on their heads." This is true. For various reasons we kept silent. As some reporters said, "We keep silent, but we all swallow our humiliation."
A few years ago, some of us were students like you, ardent and promising youths. We wanted to become news reporters, who with a clear conscience would fight for honest news. Have we become insensitive in such a short time?
Has our blood become cold, too? No. Our throats have been cut. The news's essence has been stripped because the leadership was able to check [our work] at very level. As the party's mouthpiece, we know we should speak not only for the party but also for the people. When the party errs we must remind it and make it listen carefully to the voice of the people. With these hopes, we tried time and again. But we achieved nothing, and now our throats have been cut. We must admit to being propaganda tools.
On the night of May 13, when our cameramen went to the square to film the hunger strikers, students shouted "CCTV get out!" Hearing this broke our hearts, causing pain and shock. Any news reporter with a conscience must feel sad at being a propaganda tool. We can keep silent no longer. We firmly support the students. We strongly demand a dialogue between the students and the government. (...)209
As observed media researcher Judy Polumbaum, "China’s journalists have become more
‘professional’ than one might expect of an official press corps in a single-party state" which had been also confirmed by a survey done in China at that time.210 Moreover, their version of professionalism in 1980s has been close to the Western version - and brought the journalists into a perpetual dilemma: they had to conform to often contradictory roles of a
209 S. Ogden et al., Eds. China’s Search for Democracy: The Student and the Mass Movement of 1989. Armonk:
M.E. Sharpe, 1992, pp. 214-215
210 Polumbaum 1993, 295
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critical intellectual on one hand and a servant of the party-state on the other hand. At the same time, their role also implied conflict between Confucian elitism of the literati and the ethic of public service.211 Still, according to the above mentioned survey, about 70 percent of the journalists believed that there is no problem or contradiction with serving the people and the Party at the same time.212
As Polumbaum notes, in Deng's era the political reliability of the journalist became less important than "truth-telling" and "objectivity" as the official policy supported focus on seeking truth from the facts. Media workers started to distinguish between "news" and
"propaganda" and to strengthen their group identity and expertise related to journalistic work.213 While the CCP still understood the media as its propaganda tool, the journalists wanted more debate and investigative journalism and they resented ban on criticizing higher officials.
In the situation when the Party still had ultimate authority over all media organizations and power to authorize them, close them, censor them, fire its journalists and editors etc., the editors and the journalists logically aimed at grater autonomy and greater independence from the party-state "meddling" into their work.214 In order to improve their position, they lobbied the Party to issue a Press Law which has been first promised, then postponed and finally, after the Tiananmen crackdown, it disappeared from the agenda.
A People’s Daily
The reform era of the 1980s brought to the CCP’s central organ People’s Daily new cadres with new thinking. The newspaper shifted its discourse away from Maoism of the Cultural
211 ibid., 296
212 ibid., 304
213 ibid., 297-298
214 ibid, 301
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Revolution era and throughout the decade, it published articles discussing and supporting reforms. However, this is not surprising given the ascendancy of reformers during most of the decade with only brief periods of hard-liners’ backlash which came in the form "spiritual pollution" campaign of 1983 and then as an aftermath of 1986-87 student protests. Therefore, during most of the decade, the People’s Daily represented the "line" of those who happened to be in power at a given time, and after each power shift within the party, the correct line changed, too.215
As the official Party mouthpiece, the People's Daily's circulation of about 5.3 millions of copies (as of 1989) was impressive. Still, it was only a fraction of the total of 116 millions copies of newspapers sold every day in China. Moreover, there were also other more or less
"secret" publications with a varying degree of availability, providing better, more truthful or more detailed coverage (such as Reference News [Cankao Xiaoxi], Reference Material [Cankao Ziliao] or various internal reference periodicals issued by ministries or organization like Xinhua or People's Daily itself.216 Still, People's Daily played the role of a main indicator of the Party's current line and its articles has been red not only by their face value, but also between the lines.
Along with changing correct lines according to changing fortunes of various CCP factions, the People’s Daily editors were changing as well, usually for being too critical towards actual power-holders and their ideology. The newspaper’s chief editor and later director Hu Jiwei, originally picked by Deng himself,217 had been removed in 1983 as one of the targets of the spiritual pollution campaign, while his deputy editor Wang Ruoshui has been also removed, but managed a comeback after the campaign ended, only to be expelled
215 Mu Yi and M. Thompson, Crisis at Tiananmen: Reform and Reality in Modern China. San Francisco: China Books & Periodicals, 1989, p. 126.
216 see Bishop 1989, 143-148
217 Jernow 1994, 1
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from the CCP in 1987. In the same year, People’s Daily well-known muckraking journalist Liu Binyan also lost his job and CCP membership.218
This indicates that despite the fact that People’s Daily as an institution had been a
"CCP’s mouthpiece" and - as Faison points out - the top party leaders "frequently overrode editor’s decisions on the coverage of controversial topics,"219 the journalists of the People’s Daily themselves did not necessarily shared the "correct line"220 and although the mechanism of frequent consultations among the top editors and power-holders guaranteed that the line has been followed, especially the younger journalists on the lower level of the People’s Daily hierarchy were increasingly discontent and were waiting for opportunities to
"lose their chains", imposed by CCP’s propaganda authorities and by cautious editors.221 Moreover, the People’s Daily journalists were probably the best informed people in the country, having access to confidential information, readers’ letters of complaints etc. and being authors of reports for internal publications with restricted access, e.g. only for the high-ranking party leaders.222 The discrepancy between these internal reports for the elites and the media content for the masses together with the proliferation of Western concept of journalistic professionalism in China’s journalism schools and media organization during the 1980s naturally led the journalists to consider the situation of CCP media control as far from perfect and to demand greater freedom from it.
People’s Daily during the Protests
According to Faison, the journalists of People’s Daily were ready to cover the student
218 Tan 1993, 279
219 S. Faison, "The Changing Role of the Chinese Media," in Perspectives on the Chinese people’s movement:
Spring 1989. T. Saich, Ed., Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1990, p. 158.
220 see Tan 1993, 282
221 ibid.., 280
222 ibid., 281
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protests as early as April 17.223 However, their prepared texts had been rejected by People’s Daily editor Tan Wenrui, and the only Beijing’s daily that carried coverage of the protests was Science and Technology Daily.224 Unlike his colleagues, its editor Liu Zexi took the risk which led to positive reaction among the students who quickly pasted the daily’s page with the coverage on their bulletin board, and also among the journalists of other news media who would like to cover the protests as well. However, further coverage of the protests in the Science and Technology Daily has been blocked by Liu arguing that an issue containing such material would be confiscated by authorities. After the younger journalists convinced him to cover the protests anyway, the distribution of the issue had been indeed stopped, but editors and reporters defied the authorities and distributed their newspaper by themselves.225
Overall, the media coverage of the protests was spreading quite slowly. In April 26, People’s Daily carried on its front page an editorial based on Deng Xiaoping’s speech at a closed meeting of top CCP leaders from the previous day, condemning the protests and earning condemnation of People’s Daily from the protesting students in return. However, after the massive demonstration of May 4, the People’s Daily started to cover events in a fair way and in the middle of the month, the article looked like if the censorship has disappeared.226 Frank Tan in his account summarizes that "cumulatively, the evidence shows that the state’s most important propaganda tool emerged as a virtual flagship of rebellion during this period - rebellion that grew out of tension between the newspaper’s role as mouthpiece of the political authorities and journalists’ desire to serve the masses."227
This tension can be illustrated by an excerpt from a reporter's account that appeared in students' published newspaper Xinwen Daobao (News Herald) at the end of April, 1989:
223 Lee 1990, 145
224 ibid., 146
225 Faison 1990, 149
226 Faison 1990, 147
227 Tan 1993, 278
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It's not that we news reporters lack a conscience, but that we are not the real masters of the newspapers. The vast majority of news reporters at People's Daily firmly support the students. From April 21 to 22, about one hundred journalists stood side by side with the students. Many reporters wrote eyewitness accounts for this newspaper, but none was published.
Journalists are intellectuals who also have a conscience, but we have no power. We can only keep silent, but we will never write false stories against our conscience.228
However, the period of limited press control - as Faison emphasizes, the coverage had been constrained even during mid-May229 - was very short. Hard-liners reasserted their control over People’s Daily only one day after May 20 announcement of Martial Law, soldiers and working teams consisting of loyal editors were dispatched and the journalists could use only subtle techniques to indicate their support for the protests, such as filling the rest of the front page that had to contain obligatory official statements with insignificant news from the provinces or using very small font for these official statements. One week after the June 4 crackdown, even these "futile efforts of the staff to protest the crackdown" have been eliminate.230 Leading editors were replaced, some reporters were arrested or lost their jobs, and the press in general has been made one of the scapegoats for the "turmoil."231
People’s Daily: Journalists against Systems of Media Control
Researchers often observe that the journalists were important participants in the protests and they participated in large numbers, including reporters of People’s Daily, both senior and
228 Ogden 1992, 109
229 Faison 1990, 159
230 see Tan 1993, 278
231 Tan 1993, 292
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junior.232 This is, according to Tan, especially significant since People’s Daily had a position as an official voice and the CCP took a great effort to establish uniform discourse in the mass media it controlled.233 However, as Tan emphasizes, "the evidence also shows that although Chinese journalists displayed an unprecedented level of initiative and independence during the demonstrations, culminating in three days of extraordinarily open reporting in the middle of May, the press as an institution was still an arm of the state, and the political authorities were able to re-impose control over it along with the military crackdown."234
Basically, the People’s Daily journalists, as well as their colleagues in other media in 1980s, valued professionalism understood in its Western sense more that service within a CCP propaganda apparatus - despite the fact that formerly, it has been dismissed as a thoroughly bourgeois idea.235 Only the outside control mechanisms prevented them from abandoning their role as propagandists and starting to adhere exclusively to the professional criteria of their work.
However, the dominance of values of professionalism and independence from outside interfering had also another implication: although the journalists covered the protests in a way that carried also the students’ criticism of the regime and later, after the Martial Law took effect, suggested sympathy for the students between the lines, they did not cross the line and never became "mouthpieces" of the student opposition. The journalists joined the protests as individuals working for People’s Daily, not as the People’s Daily as a whole organization that would throw its support behind the students and - for example - call the Chinese society to join their protests against the regime.
Thus, the editors and journalists of the People’s Daily took the advantage of the external
232 see Polumbaum 1993, 295, Tan 1993, 280, Zhao 2004, 44
233 Tan 1993, 277
234 ibid., 278
235 ibid.
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events (power struggle within the CCP, student protests) and internal pressures (general shifting from propaganda towards professionalism)236 and provided their readers with better coverage and more perspectives. However, the structural and political constraints of their professionalism prevented them from directly encouraging more massive participation on the protests, placing them into the role of philosophers brave enough to interpret the world but not enough to change it.
Aftermath
During the persecution after the crackdown, People’s Daily was reportedly affected more than other Chinese media. Its director Qian Liren and chief editor Ten Wenrui left "for health reasons", three deputy chiefs Yu Huanchun, Fan Rongkang and Lu Chaoqi were forced to retire or were transferred, almost everyone on higher level was dismissed, 40-60 reporters were fired, suspended or transferred to other units and every journalist and editor had to undergo a scrutiny supervised by 35 people-strong working team.237
Meanwhile, the new CCP leadership condemned "proliferation of bourgeois liberalization" as a major cause of upheaval and called the journalists to "expose the hypocritical and reactionary nature of bourgeois freedom of the press."238 The media quickly adopted this line as the reformist could not protect anyone now and thus the room for maneuvering ceased to exist. Still, despite the suppression of the protests, the journalists were generally benefiting from the economic reforms that had been re-launched in 1992. As Zhao notes, "rather than fighting against the state for more political autonomy, many have been co-opted by the post-1989 political and economic elite and now act as their lapdogs."239
236 see Tan 1993, 285
237 Jernow 1994, 42
238 ibid., 43
239 Zhao 2004, 44
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As for 2013, the People's Daily remains the central organ of the CCP's Central Committee and its editorials are still regarded as authoritative statements of the Chinese government. People's Daily Chinese language version is complemented by editions in English, Japanese, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Korean. It current president is Zhang Yannong. Its new golden-plated headquarters is under construction in Beijing. During the 1990s, the paper experienced increasing competition by other newspapers while government subsidies gradually decreased. The revenues from the sold copies had to be complemented by revenues from advertising. Since 1993, the sister English-language tabloid Global Times is published alongside People's Daily.
B World Economic Herald
Although the focus of the Shanghai-based World Economic Herald had been originally on international news, the domestic topics have been also gradually covered. The average readership was around 300,000 and consisted mostly of influential intellectuals and government leaders. According to Jernow, "although it ran hard news on economic matters, the Herald was perhaps most innovative in its opinion and commentary pieces. At its best, it was a public forum for lively debate about China’s future."240
The editor of the magazine was Qin Benli, a veteran journalist and CCP cadre who aimed at creating a media outlet that would be reflecting China’s new economic orientation.
He suffered during Anti-Rightist campaign in 1950s and then again during Cultural Revolution in 1960s, but he was still working within the system following the Chinese tradition of loyal intellectual dissent.241 Qin had been close to some of the influential reformers including Zhao Ziyang who were shielding him and his Herald. In turn, the
240 Jernow 1994, 15
241 Jernow 1994, 14
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magazine's writers and editors were willing to take risks and evade strict Party control.
This evasion of supervision was supported by the fact that it was highly ambiguous who had the final authority over the magazine: it could be one of the two publishing organizations, or the Central Propaganda Department, or the Shanghai CCP organs. Formally, World Economic Herald had been published jointly by Chinese World Economists’ Association and Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, but neither of these institution had much control over content and that has been actually the reason for this arrangement. Similarly, the Herald has
This evasion of supervision was supported by the fact that it was highly ambiguous who had the final authority over the magazine: it could be one of the two publishing organizations, or the Central Propaganda Department, or the Shanghai CCP organs. Formally, World Economic Herald had been published jointly by Chinese World Economists’ Association and Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, but neither of these institution had much control over content and that has been actually the reason for this arrangement. Similarly, the Herald has