Two intrepid Chinese women–one a naturalized American working as a reporter in New York, the other a former Beijing business writer now serving a six-year sentence in a Chinese jail–have helped define what is at stake for East Asia and the world now that the Hong Kong press is under the formal sway of the…
When Australian journalist Alan Knight started thinking about the impending changes in Hong Kong, he saw a job to be done documenting the attitudes of local and foreign journalists in the soon-to-be former colony. Knight moved to Hong Kong in early 1997 and began producing Dateline: Hong Kong, a Web site devoted to press and…
CHINA Chen Fang BOOK BANNING Aug. 21, 1997 The Communist Party’s propaganda department, the Culture Ministry, and the Press and Publications Administration banned Chen Fang’s 1997 book, Wrath of Heaven: A Mayor’s Severe Crime, for posing a threat to Chinese leadership with its coverage of government corruption. Though a novel, the book describes the infamous…
It was at the end of my year teaching journalism as a Fulbright lecturer at Fudan University in Shanghai, and one of my best students was talking about his future. “I don’t want to go into journalism,” he said. “It’s too depressing. You can’t be a real journalist.” I had been in China for almost…
The publication in March of CPJ’s Attacks on the Press in 1996 was the culmination of months of intense preparation by CPJ staff, investigating and verifying more than 1,000 documented cases of violations of press freedom worldwide. The 376-page volume, edited by Publications Director Alice Chasan, is the longest and most comprehensive of CPJ’s annual…
Two intrepid Chinese women–one a naturalized American who works as a reporter in New York, the other a former Beijing business writer now serving a six-year sentence in a Chinese jail–have helped define what is at stake for East Asia and the world when the Hong Kong press comes under the formal sway of the…
In a landmark victory for democracy and press freedom, a Taiwan court on April 22 dismissed criminal libel charges against American journalist Ying Chan and Taiwan-based journalist Hsieh Chung-liang. An amicus brief signed by ten prominent United States media companies and the Committee to Protect Journalists on the defendants’ behalf was a strong factor in…