3. Chinese Investigative Journalism
3.3. Roles of investigative journalists
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mode during delicate political incidents in the country, media immediately falls back into the revolutionary tone of the Maoist era. As a matter of fact, the concept of the
“audience” is still limited by ideological and political boundaries (Zhang, 2000).
Coming back to the main focus of this thesis, the author will concentrate more on the profession of Chinese investigative journalists in the following section. In particular, this section will illustrate the different roles that reporters in China assume and their motives for doing so.
3.3. Roles of investigative journalists in China
A factor that complicates the journalist’s profession in China is the duality of its formal and informal roles. Formally, all Chinese journalists are supposed to obey the official propaganda line. Thus, only the Party authorizes what kind of news gets published and how it is going to be interpreted. As for the informal side, Chinese journalists try to escape the grip of the Party-control, as their media seek liberties in the markets. Operations in Chinese media have been extremely commercialized despite their Party affiliation. As a consequence journalists have the opportunity to express opinions that might contradict the predominant Party ideology (Zhang, 1993).
Investigative reporters often perform as mediators in times of public dispute.
In his book The Mediation Process, Moore (2003) describes nine different roles that mediators tend to assume. Since this thesis focuses on the concept of Chinese investigative journalism, which inherently differs from its Western counterpart, the author intends to focus on two of these roles in particular. First, investigative journalists in China tend to assume the role of the “problem explorer”. Thus, investigative newspapers in China enable people in dispute to examine a problem from a variety of viewpoints, help to outline the particular issues and interests, and seek “mutually satisfactory” options.
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The second role that Moore mentions in his book is called “agent of reality”.
In China, media assumes the role of a mediator that assists to defuse tense situations caused by unrealistic goals proclaimed by the Party. With regard to China, these mediators, or investigative journalists, give feedback to the Party whether certain policies, i.e. reforms have been implemented correctly or corruption, power abuse and incompetence of the local Party organs threaten stability. In other words, investigative journalists in China create new channels of communication, enhance existent communication and optimize processes.
That role of a mediator is also known by another more sophisticated term used and created by the Party authorities, internal reporting. Referring to Article 7 of the
“Rules for Journalists”, Grant (1988) stresses:
The state of thinking of cadres and masses, every change in social direction, and reflections and proposals from every quarter on the Party’s line and general and specific policies – which has value as reference but is not suitable for public reporting – must be supplied to leadership organs and related departments through the active and responsible writing up of internal reference materials. (p. 55)
Investigative journalists in China are all supposed to fulfill their certain role of
“problem solvers”. Thus, according to the Party line, a journalists’ work is meant to have an official purpose. As assistants of the leading Party elite they partially serve as the “eyes and ears” of the power core. In practical terms this means that Party leaders might assign journalists to particular tasks, i.e. investigating how certain policy issued by the central government have been implemented in the provinces. According to the findings, the Party elite is capable of evaluating whether the policy has not been implemented correctly by the local authorities or the policy itself is not suitable for
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the specific situation (Grant, 1988). “Internal reporting” is, therefore, also an important information tool for the Party due to the lack of reliable inner-party information channels. Information channels of the Party are often blocked for political or bureaucratic reasons (Grant, 1988).
In contrast to the Western media system, journalists in China are obliged to issue two different versions of their reports. Thus, the functions of journalists are divided into public and hidden, or the external and the internal. Internal references are organized in certain categories, for example, references for the politburo or for officials of different ranks. Those internal references can be compared to the briefing sheets issued by information officers of Western governments. The only difference between them is that in the West those references are written by information officials or contracted academics, whereas in China they are issued by investigative journalists.
In this regard, Internal References are a part of Party-internal decision making processes. Published in the appropriate category, internal references actually contribute to the subsequent action taken by the authorities (De Burgh, 2003).
Thus, internal references are supposed to supervise and improve existing Party policies. In contrast to the common opinion that journalism in China does not scrutinize governmental operations, internal references prove different. Although not accessible to the public, journalists in China also need to acquire skills to successfully expose malfunctions in the local political strata. Criticism and dissent is expected.
Interestingly, the Party also utilizes this concept to recruit new, capable and promising people for the Party’s governmental system.
Since the public is not supposed to see those internal references and is therefore not affected by their content, Chinese investigative journalists are entitled to
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write about a variety of sensitive topics, knowing that their reports supposedly will never appear in public media.
No need to mention that some local Party cadres sometimes are not tremendously delighted about the effort that journalists put into their investigative work to compile thorough reports, especially then when those local authorities are involved in corruption or other crimes. Thus, in China it is not necessarily the Party that restricts newspapers and their reporting. Local media control aims to protect local, mostly economically interests. As a matter of fact, these interests frequently contradict the official central government’s will (Tong, 2010). As Tong (2010) elaborates:
The growth of local power has caused a fragmenting of the power of the central elite. When the interests of local elites diverge from those of the central elite, the Chinese Marxist principle of media control becomes a propaganda tool to serve the central and local elites’ separate and even conflicting needs.
Local power employs the classic principle to set and define news agendas in local media defending local interests. The rise of local propaganda control, therefore, leads to the centralization of the interests of the local ruling elites and the marginalization of both lower-level social groups’ interests and national concerns in the public discourse. (p. 926)
The development of local media control has therefore disrupted the power relationship between state and nation. As the Chinese state’s top-down hegemony has been “dismantled” and subsequently shifted to the local authorities, a new and most concerning threat for the Party has evolved (Goldman & MacFarquhar, 1999).
Local forces frequently counteract directives coming straight from the Party core. The result is often social injustice in the provinces. Social injustice, furthermore,
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disrupts stability and local media control and local protectionism undermines the legitimacy of the Party authorities in Beijing. Thus, local authorities attempt to maximize their profits by ignoring Party directives at the expense of human and natural resources (Tong, 2010). Since these local forces strive to protect their interests, even if those contradict the official Party line and therefore are sometimes even considered to be illegal, journalists have to be aware of how they approach sensitive issues in the provinces. As a matter of fact, dealing with these kinds of sensitive issues might not so much endanger the professional career of the journalists, as it might threaten their physical integrity. In order to protect themselves and their position, local Party cadres might also try to discredit journalists or accuse them of
“rumour-mongering”. In this regard “internal reports” are also highly protective.
Journalists are able to convey an interesting story to their audience on the one hand, and protect themselves with the help of a constructive and informative report to the Party core on the other hand.
Although the reforms and the rise of the market-oriented press have facilitated the work of investigative journalists and the latter elaborated roles are also more convenient to assume for them, the journalistic profession in China sometimes still bears risks. Dealing with political sensitive issues in China or scrutinizing Party policies, no matter if directly or indirectly, is still considered to be an act of balancing on a knife’s edge.
A third role that can be allocated to Chinese investigative reporters is that of the “resource expander”. In other words, these journalists provide an “expansion of discourse”, triggered by their investigative reporting and by channelizing credible information to non-involved experts, e.g. think tanks that subsequently can take action as “problem explorers” and “agents of reality”. Thus, despite their own mediating role,
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Chinese investigative journalists have the power to involve other mediating forces that can help to alleviate critical situations and to defuse tensions (Wetzstein, 2010).
While assuming all the previously discussed roles, Chinese journalists are not only exposed to possible Party leadership retaliation. In fact, local Party control in the provinces presents an even more challenging and sometimes even more dangerous threat to journalists and their profession. In contrast to the central Party leadership, acts of retaliation originating from local cadres are more difficult to predict and to deal with. In response, investigative journalists in China have over the years come up with certain strategies in carrying out their professional practice.