Apr 6th 2005
By: monica
By: monica
Media Reporting in China
For the last few days all world media have widely covered the death of Pope John Paul II and have extensively reported on his life and role in the XX century. All? Not in China, which together with Russia, is one of the few countries that was never visited by the Pope.
There, news spread slowly. The Chinese State-run broadcaster released minimal information about the Pope�s death on their news broadcast. State-run newspaper were silent about the matter. Apparently they all made a nationwide tree-planting campaign their top story. Chinese Internet sites did cover the news but in little detail while chatrooms largely ignored it. Why? It has been reported that on the People�s Daily (the Party�s newspaper) website only two posts were found. One of them reads as follows: “The passing of the pope is the biggest news in the world today. Is discussion allowed?” This explains it. Basically, it is a “delicate-non-welcomed” topic.
I guess we all agree that planting trees is a good thing, but it is hard to believe that it was genuinely perceived by Chinese media as the most important world event of the week. This is yet another example of the high degree of control over media still exerted by the Chinese government that is on the lookout for any elements that might be considered “subversive”. Although the Internet does offer the potential for greater freedom, it is tightly monitored too. Censorship is common and the government continues to imprison citizens for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and belief. Greater international pressure for change is urgently needed.
See further on this the 2004 Annual Report by Reporters Without Borders.
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