Tag Archives: china

Job opening: Chinese propagandist

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China needs to improve its image abroad, so the regime is now willing to invest no less than 6 billion dollars in Chinese media which target international audiences. There is talk of a Xinhua satellite channel and new English language newspaper editions. Expertise is needed and probably available in these difficult economic times:

Many English reporters in other Beijing-based media organisations said they had received “very competitive salary package” offers from the Global Times as the head-hunting campaign becomes more urgent, with some saying apartments were being offered as well as high salaries.

The value of reported blogs

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The New York Times website has been blocked by Chinese censors. China-based writer and blogger Adam Minter argues that the impact for web users in China is smaller than it would have been a few years ago. The reason is the proliferation of reported blogs — that is, blogs where the emphasis is on checking and reporting facts rather than expressing opinions:

I don’t mean to suggest that the block isn’t important. But it is interesting (to me, at least) that it is so much less consequential to consumers of English-language news in China, in 2008, than it would have been even two years ago (admittedly, a small group of people, even including the Chinese readers of English). If I had the competence to read and understand the Chinese language blogs that break news, I’d guess that it would matter even less.

(Story found on James Fallows’ blog. Fallows had the story about the NYT block first — on his blog).

More internet freedom in China, for how long?

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The unblocking of several important regime-critical websites the past few days makes the internet more free for people in China, not only for journalists in the Olympics press centre. Andrew Lih has compiled a list and observes:

This is actually quite remarkable for folks living in China. The “Big Three” NGOs that have been unrelenting critics of China have been reliably blocked for years. YZZK (Yazhou Zhoukan) and Apple Daily both in Hong Kong, have done some of the most critical journalism regarding China.

The OpenNet Initiative, which does in-depth studies and monitoring of the Great Firewall, notes on their blog:

Another open question is whether China’s Internet filtering practices will be transformed in the rest of the country, and for how long. For most Chinese citizens the situation appears to be more of the same–the usual strict supervision goes into hyperdrive as sensitive political events unfold. As international media focused their attention on websites hosted overseas, China has already tightened control over domestic cyberspace, such as online discussions on online forums and chat rooms.

The “Firewall”, of course, has many aspects. One of the best accounts I have read is James Fallows’ in The Atlantic.