It explains the large numbers of talented journalists who leave the profession to go into public relations or other communications-related work, the rampant cynicism among those Chinese journalists who stay on the job, and the prevalence of payoffs for stories. But there is a happy side to this sorry situation. Despite almost half a century of absolute control over the media by propaganda authorities in Beijing, the media workers in China are still chomping at the bit for real journalism. The passion with which employees at the major state media organizations in Beijing threw themselves behind the students in Tiananmen Square in 1989 is evidence of this. I met while working as a Hong Kong-based correspondent covering China.
Chinese journalism is a caged tiger waiting to be freed.
Such assertiveness and daring frightens the anxious old men who run China, who are trying to figure out how to keep the economy perking along without losing their political control. I'm convinced that in the end the journalists will win. China's journalists still know what their profession is really about and still crave to break loose from all the controls that prevent them from doing their jobs. The irony is that as China's media begins to break free, its practitioners will find themselves running up against myriad layers of a repressive apparatus unused to scrutiny. As the press begins to open up more, CPJ might find it has more cases in China, instead of fewer.