III. Media and Journalists within and beyond the Communist Media System
III.2 The Press and the Protests
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"The newspaper practice was that every Monday and later every Friday, there was a meeting of the chief editors at the [Communist] Party headquarters where everyone had to go for their brainwash. The told them first what is our relationship with Honduras, that [the Austria's social-democratic chancellor in the 1980s Fred] Sinowatz is coming for a visit and that we should not curse Austria this week, this one is good, that one is bad and so on. Then came the evaluation, where [the satirical magazine] Dikobraz was criticized for one of its cartoons, [Youth League's daily] Mlada Fronta was criticized for its formulation about [Communist chief ideologue] Jan Fojtik and so on. And on one of these meetings last year [e.g. in 1989] it has been decided that the chief editors are personally responsible for anything published in their papers. It was idea of [Communist Party director of Mass Media Department] Otto Cmolik. After him, Josef Hora chaired these meetings. His idea was that in case of events such as anti-regime protests, only official reports from the Czechoslovak Press Agency can be published."194
Different position of the dailies is echoed also in Horeni's statement that "Svobodne Slovo's chief editor had to go to explain himself in front of the National Front members when some article appeared that was not according to the interests of the highest places. I never went for any such telling-off. In total, I had only once heard certain reservations regarding Rude Pravo."195
III.2 The Press and the Protests
The academic articles and books focusing on the role of media and journalists during the Tiananmen protests usually identify journalists as belonging to the intellectual social strata, note that the journalists shared the same economic and moral anxieties of the times as the other intellectuals, emphasize that they were exposed to the problem of professionalism values versus party requirements for maintaining ideological line, and finally notice that the
194 Hvizdala 2001, 59
195 Kalenska 2004
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journalists participated in the protests (joining the students). In the end, the Party’s hardliners actually had to strike back against Party's own media around and after the June 4 crackdown A typical account, representing all the others, is provided by Zhao:
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.196
Usually, these accounts focus on World Economic Herald weekly as a flagship of the quest for democracy and freedom, and mention the role of its editor Qin Benli.197 They also mention the fact that some reporters joined the student protests on May 4, 1989, protesting Qin’s expulsion from CCP and removal from his editorial post.198 But generally, they note that the participation of the journalists has been connected not only to the person of Qin Benli, but rather to more general values of press freedom, professionalism and serving the people.
Their slogan "Don’t Force Us to Lie" even made it into titles of one book chapter and one study.199
Another universally mentioned event is the April 26 editorial in People’s Daily,
196 Zhao 2004, 44
197 M. J. Berlin, "The Performance of the Chinese Media During the Beijing Spring" in Chinese Democracy and the Crisis of 1989. Chinese and American Reflections, R.V. DesForges et al., Eds., New York: SUNY, 1993, p. 265.
198 Berlin 1993, 266
199 Jernow 1994, see also C. C. Hsiao and M. R. Yang, "‘Don’t Force Us to Lie’: The Case of the World Economic Herald." In Voices of China: The Interplay of Politics and Journalism, C. C. Lee (Ed.), New York:
Guilford Press, 1990, pp. 111-121.
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containing the main points of Deng Xiaoping’s speech denouncing the protests.200 Generally, the editorial polarized the situation not only among the protesting students, but also served as a turning point for the journalists who joined the protests claiming that they are against the editorial and that they did not write it. Some authors mention that media played both reflecting and supporting role regarding the protests201 and some try to analyze why the media control mechanism failed.202
In general, the evidence suggests that the Chinese journalists acted more like professionals than like anti-regime activists when covering the protests, although many of them did participate in the protests. The media control mechanisms were paralyzed only as long as Zhao Ziyang had some power; after the hardliners managed to oust him, they quickly managed to place media back under their control. In any case, the media never started to criticize the regime by its own voice: even during the brief period of greatest freedom, they only reported about criticism of others.
Compared with the relative wealth of academic texts covering the Chinese media and journalists during the Tiananmen protests, there is general lack of works dealing in greater detail with the Czech media during the Velvet Revolution with the notable exception of Smid.203 There are only few accounts on what was going on, usually interviews with journalists who were involved in shifting the discourse of their media and supporting the cause of the protestors. These accounts tend to emphasize their role and they are critical of their pro-regime adversaries. Interestingly, the only available resource covering in some
200 Berlin 1993, 266
201 F. Tan, "The People's Daily and the Epiphany of Press Reform," in Chinese Democracy and the Crisis of 1989. Chinese and American Reflections. R. V. DesForges et al., Eds. Albany: State University of New York, 1993, p. 277.
202 J. Polumbaum, "’Professionalism’ in China’s Press Corps" in Chinese Democracy and the Crisis of 1989.
Chinese and American Reflections. R. V. DesForges et al., Eds. Albany: State University of New York, 1993, pp.
295-311.
203 Smid 2013
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detail what has been going on in the Communist Party mouthpiece Rude Pravo, unfortunately only from the time after the Velvet Revolution, are articles of the New York Times correspondents. Narrative historical accounts204 mention the media briefly but do not analyze their role.
In any case, the protest of November 17, 1989 differed in several ways from the previous protests: it was an officially approved student demonstration, the police crackdown was especially brutal (although there were no dead) while the students insisted on the peaceful nature of their protest, and its coverage in the official media was not completely negative. Moreover, during the weekend immediately after the Friday protests, anti-regime dissidents used their friendships and contacts in the political and media sphere and on Monday, November 20, Svobodne Slovo (second largest daily at the time, published by the Socialist Party) issued a statement condemning the police crackdown.205
In turn, people started to gather on the Prague’s main Wenceslas Square in front of the newspaper's building. These gatherings grew day by day and the crowds were addressed by the leaders of the protests from the building’s balcony. Already on Monday, the workers of the state television managed to broadcast relatively neutral report about the demonstration in the evening news against opposition of their pro-regime bosses, and during the week, other media followed the suit.206 The regime has been paralyzed and avoided any further crackdowns. Meanwhile, a significant number of journalists joined the protests and took over their media to cover the events and criticize the regime. The crowds in the streets all over the country soon included all social strata and in ten days from the original crackdown, successful general strike marked the collapse of the regime.
The evidence suggests that many Czech journalists acted as anti-regime activists instead
204 such as Suk 2003
205 see Suk, 2003
206 Smid 2013
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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.