No surprises here! The Huffington Post has a piece on the sort of restrictions reporters will face in seeking to cover the upcoming Beijing Olympics:
"Despite China's initial openness to reporters in the days and weeks following the devastating earthquake in Sichuan province, anyone who thinks China is going to be warm and friendly towards the media during the August Olympics should do a reality check. In the last few days about six foreign reporters were hauled away from a demonstration of angry mothers, demanding answers to why their children had died in what appears to have been poorly constructed schools. Foreigners say they are beginning to have a hard time getting permission to travel to the affected areas, and there has been a change in attitude on the part of local authorities.
Back in 2001, when China beat out four other cities to host the Games, the Chinese specifically promised that "there will be no restrictions on journalists in reporting on the Olympic Games." There were plenty of skeptics at the time, but there was also reason to expect some significant improvement. Chinese leaders, under then president Jiang Zemin, looked like they were moving toward freeing up media, and incoming President Hu Jintao had a reputation as being slightly more liberal than Jiang. Coupled with the rapid commercialization of the media that had been going on for more than a decade, a freer media in China by the time the Games rolled around looked like a possibility, though admittedly a long shot.
The bet didn't pay off -- Chinese media is arguably more restricted now than it was when China was awarded the Games and it is not realistic to expect that to change before August 8, when the Games start. China is still the world's largest jailer of journalists -- 26 behind bars as of today. But even more significant is the increasingly sophisticated censorship and content control system that has evolved. Mainstream Chinese reporters and their editors know just how far to push stories. And to make sure they don't go too far, they are at the receiving end of a daily, sometimes hourly, stream of directives from the Central Propaganda Department -- that's its name translated from the Chinese. In English the government calls it the Central Publicity Department."
Read on, here, to see how things are likely to shape up in Beijing in August.
"Despite China's initial openness to reporters in the days and weeks following the devastating earthquake in Sichuan province, anyone who thinks China is going to be warm and friendly towards the media during the August Olympics should do a reality check. In the last few days about six foreign reporters were hauled away from a demonstration of angry mothers, demanding answers to why their children had died in what appears to have been poorly constructed schools. Foreigners say they are beginning to have a hard time getting permission to travel to the affected areas, and there has been a change in attitude on the part of local authorities.
Back in 2001, when China beat out four other cities to host the Games, the Chinese specifically promised that "there will be no restrictions on journalists in reporting on the Olympic Games." There were plenty of skeptics at the time, but there was also reason to expect some significant improvement. Chinese leaders, under then president Jiang Zemin, looked like they were moving toward freeing up media, and incoming President Hu Jintao had a reputation as being slightly more liberal than Jiang. Coupled with the rapid commercialization of the media that had been going on for more than a decade, a freer media in China by the time the Games rolled around looked like a possibility, though admittedly a long shot.
The bet didn't pay off -- Chinese media is arguably more restricted now than it was when China was awarded the Games and it is not realistic to expect that to change before August 8, when the Games start. China is still the world's largest jailer of journalists -- 26 behind bars as of today. But even more significant is the increasingly sophisticated censorship and content control system that has evolved. Mainstream Chinese reporters and their editors know just how far to push stories. And to make sure they don't go too far, they are at the receiving end of a daily, sometimes hourly, stream of directives from the Central Propaganda Department -- that's its name translated from the Chinese. In English the government calls it the Central Publicity Department."
Read on, here, to see how things are likely to shape up in Beijing in August.
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