Follow in Tracks of Gagging News Media Reports

A move was reported to have lately been made to put gags on a recent issue of Worker's Daily, a major official newspaper in China, along with Golden Arrow magazine and journal Legal Focus in Lushi County, Henan Province. For running articles reporting on former county Party secretary Du Baoqian's redundant and extravagant projects in past five years these have been summarily confiscated by a few power users in the county.

Truth Dug into

Lushi is an impoverished county with a poor economy under the jurisdiction of Sanmenxia City according to Worker's Daily August 10th issue. Since beginning of 1996 when Du Baoqian took office as county Party secretary, a batch of unnecessary and wasteful projects were whimsically launched under his demand, which had led to over 100m yuan deficit. On June 4, 2001 Du was detained by procuratorial department for taking bribes and arrested on June 18.

To create "scenes of southern China", Du ordered over ten projects to be built in urban areas as "night sites of interest" and paved boulevards at a cost of 13.96m yuan. Regardless of local conditions, a "hundred li corridor of edible fungus" was set up for which more than 6400 hectares of forests were destroyed. He even consumed millions of state poverty-relief funds for erecting a ferromanganese alloy plant though not a bit of the metal has been produced.

On top of squandering financial resources over 30 local cadres and policemen had even been sent breaking into people's house and taking away their properties only because they refused to do compulsive work on Du's whimsical projects.

Finally these were made known by Zhang Wenxiu, Party secretary of Xiangziping Village, Wenyu County, and now the case has been put under investigation of judicial departments at two levels in Henan Province.

A local respondent interviewed said he has seen in person that copies of Worker's Daily and Golden Sword magazine carrying articles about Du were confiscated by men from Lushi post office, who also told peddlers not to sell them any more.

Opposing arguments

On August 27, vice publicity department head of Sanmenxia City Government and deputy post office chief Jiao of Lushi County was interviewed:

Reporter: There are reports that Lushi County post office lately has had a recent issue of Worker's Daily and those of other two confiscated, is this true? What's your consideration for doing that?

Jiao: It's me who phoned post office chief, saying government leaders want to read relevant reports so I want a few copies. I also asked him to make a little investigation for I heard the reports had been done into leaflets and sold at 1 yuan at newspaper stands.

Deputy post office chief: after receiving the call the post office send out its men to newspaper stands and ordered a stop to all like sales of printed matter in question. There were two of these in circulation, one was Worker's Daily, and the other an article downloaded from the Internet. These printed matter had spread fast, far and near, a boiling fever was stirred up all over Lushi.

Reporter: Did the publicity department contact Worker's Daily? And how is the way they reacted?

Jiao: By far, we have got no contact with the paper and we don't see the necessity.

Reporter: What's your opinion on news media's supervision via public opinion?

Jiao: It exerts great social function and without it news stories would carry no weight.

Wu Yan from Worker's Daily weekend edition also received interview.

Reporter: Were Worker's Daily and the other two really confiscated on August 15? For what reason do you think they did such a thing?

Wu: We received a fax on August 23 telling about the matter, then it was confirmed. We have published the confiscation news on front page of August 24 issue. Now it's not clear why they took away the newspaper.

Reporter: Have you taken any measures and how they respond?

Wu: By now we have not contacted Sanmenxia City and Lushi County, but we have sent our reporter in Zhengzhou to confirm the matter and we will continue to pay attention to the case.

Reporter: What do you think what you did on media's supervision via public opinion?

Wu: It is our duty and as journalists we are using our rights according to law.

Expert's opinion

The confiscation, if confirmed, is infringement upon citizens' right to learn the truth, Yu Guoming, professor on public opinion studies of Renmin University, points out.

Reporter: What's the nature of this newspaper confiscation event?

Yu: If the report is true it should be infringement upon citizens' right to learn the truth, media's supervision right via public opinion, as well as people's right to get access to media.

Reporter: Did similar things have ever occurred in other places across the country?

Yu: There are things upsetting media's supervision in this country and this we can trail back to the affair of 'Wu Wei taking over newspapers' that happened towards the end of 1980's, which really made a stir in the country.

However, confiscating newspaper is only the tip of an iceberg and there are many other ways to influence media's objective reporting, for example, power holders control the media, also known as anti-publication, plus other methods that can cause personal injury to news reporters.

Reporter: Do local governments violate relevant laws when they order confiscation of newspapers?

Yu: First of all, the move is absolutely illegal since the media has functioned as the observer of the society to disclose scandals for wide concern of the society. Any act to confiscate or seize newspapers does infringe upon citizens' right to know the truth.



Source: By PD Online Staff Li Heng


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