由朱利安

我的新聞事業路線在中國的大眾傳播媒體今天有一名特邀報告人-亞瑟Kroeber、中國經濟季刊的研究為Dragonomics和總編輯總經理和頭。 先生。 與我們談話的Kroeber關於事務的演變壓入中國，因為改革和開頭開始了1978年，怎麼經濟報告文學對擴展新聞自由在其他前面貢獻了和近年來出現了的問題。 我張貼了在他的演講期間，我採取的筆記。 我抱歉，如果他們是散漫的，但我鍵入相當快速：

開始在改革之後發生和開放期間的其中一件事是報告文學政府的更加偉大的容忍關於經濟事務。 在80年代，中國政府做了決定那 雖然變法仍然「桌」，需要相當廣泛的經濟改革。 它迅速變得明顯您不可能有一個經濟改革節目，除非您有開放討論。

如此，在80s中，集中於經濟問題的出版物湧現了。 有趣的是，雖然開始的這些出版物報道經濟，冒險的編輯開始推擠什麼的信封是經濟方面。

在90年代，中國的股市開始離開。 然而，有很多問題，因為股市未很好被調控，導致很多知情人操作。

在這時間附近，在美國學習了經濟和財務和海外回來了的許多中國公民。 The returnees ultimately persuaded the regulators of the stock market that it would be in their interest to promote an independent financial magazine whose function would be to investigate fraudulent activities in the stock market.

The most important resulting startup publication was Caijing (财经) magazine. Caijing established a reputation for being independent and of good standards. “They have a take no prisoners approach and report fearlessly on corruption.” However, more importantly, Caijing also began reporting on social issues—–though they steer clear of politics. Remember, for publications in China, it’s very difficult to judge which stories you can get away with covering and how far to go in doing so.

In 2003, when the SARS epidemic hit southern China, Caijing actually published a series of articles culminating with a cover story revealing local government cover ups. This was an experiment to see how far they could push the envelope—how far they could go. If the government accused them of exceeding their mandate—that is reporting on non-economic issues—Caijing could justify their reports by pointing out the importance of reporting on such events due to the economic impact SARS was having on Chinese commerce and international trade. Caijing was constantly pushing their reports further into the realm of revealing the social and political issues underlying the SARS crisis.’

Finally, the government decided that Caijing’s reports had gone too far and sent Caijing a serious warning. It didn’t dare shut down Caijing or impose greater sanctions because of the publication’s prominent international profile

In contrast, the local papers in the Guangdong area, where the SARS problems originated and who had also covered the social and political injustices behind SARS quite aggressively (exposing government cover-up efforts), were shut down and had their editors arrested and convicted (on trumped up charges of embezzlement).

Today, China has a very vibrant media. As long as publications are talking about economic and financial matters, they operate with a high degree of freedom. However, if they begin to deviate from the Party considers acceptable, or if they disagree with a recently made Party decision, they get warned to cease reporting on said subject matter.

For example, in 2003, there was concern that the RMB was being held at too low a value and there was a lot of pressure on the government to revalue it. This was reported on extensively, and for quite a long time—-probably because there was a debate within the government about what to do. Indeed, as long as there was a debate amongst members of the Party, there was a willingness to allow the press to debate the issue as well. However, when the Party ended its debate (but before they made an announcement), the government issued an order to stop discussing the issue—–and debate promptly disappeared. At that point the government had made up its mind about what it wanted to do and it felt that further discussion could potentially inflame members of the populace or decision makers, make management of the bilateral relationship with the US more difficult, and prejudice the timing of the revaluation.
So, that’s how things work in economic reporting in China.

There’s may be a lively debate, but at the margins it will always be constrained by the government’s ability to step in at any time and say, “ok, enough is enough.”

Additionally, there’s a high degree of self-censorship. Publications never know what’s going to induce the government to shut them down or arrest the editor, and they want their reportage to reach that provocative level. Publications step way back from that edge.

More problems:
1) One thing that has become a big issue recently is extortion and bribery between businesses and the business press. In the 90s, businesses would bribe journalists to write laudatory stories. Now, however, the press has such an influence on businesses’ stock prices that there’s the problem where journalists are extorting money from businesses. Reporters threaten to release exposure stories or even false stories unless they receive money.
2) The prices in the stock market have no relation to the quality of the companies. The business press could help find out a company’s real worth by looking into its figures, but China has such huge regulatory problems and poor accounting standards that there’s very little we (the business press) can do. The business press acts as a filter, guiding the public to look at what’s important about a company’s numbers, but if there’s no regulatory structure that forces the companies to put what is important into the public domain, the press can’t do much.

Julian, Cha Sha Bao