According to a report from the Wall Street Journal,''a letter posted online in the wee hours Monday by a former producer for China’s state television broadcaster starkly voiced in public the frustrations of a journalist working inside the country’s state-run media machinery''.
''A letter posted online in the wee hours Monday by a former producer for China’s state television broadcaster starkly voiced in public the frustrations of a journalist working inside the country’s state-run media machinery''.
''The letter was written by Wang Qinglei, a producer on well-known China Central Television news programs “24 Hours” and “Face to Face.” It was a response, Mr. Wang wrote, to being fired for having posted online criticisms of CCTV’s coverage of Charles Xue, a Chinese-American investor and prominent social media commentator arrested earlier this year in Beijing, on charges of visiting prostitutes''.
Saying at the outset that he left CCTV on Nov. 27 after spending 10 years there, Mr. Wang described his disgust at the broadcaster’s reports on Mr. Xue and other influential microbloggers: “We abused the public institution of media to wantonly bombard an individual indiscretion. Journalistic integrity and professionalism were nowhere to be found.”
The letter was initially posted on Mr. Wang’s verified account on the Twitter-like Sina Weibo microblogging service only to be deleted. Numerous other copies online were also deleted. Still Mr. Wang and other Weibo users continue to repost and comment on it.
Elsewhere in the letter, Mr. Wang savages the propaganda system that censors news content.
''The voices we hope to broadcast and the attitudes we hope to express have been silenced over and over again. A leader once joked with me: ‘When you’re choosing topics for reporting, you have to take their measure. Basically, whatever you feel you ought to report or want to report, that’s what you can’t report.’ What a cruel and stifling reality for a journalist!
In the space of a year, we get upwards of a thousand propaganda orders. We should ask ourselves: How many of these orders were issued in the national interest, and how many were issued to serve the political and economic interests of some individual, group or leader? And how often did we castrate ourselves as a result of trying to fathom the attitudes of high officials? Our leaders should understand that if the amount of news you can’t report climbs too high, people won’t believe the news you can report – because it’s propaganda chosen with a purpose''.
