China

2011

  

In China, real people vs. Internet minders

In the next three months, users of China’s microblog weibo.com — “weibo” is the generic Chinese term for Twitter-like platforms — run by the huge sina.com (the English site is here) news portal, entertainment and blogging site, will have to start providing their real-world identities to the site, instead of simply being able to register.…

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Uighur journalists who covered protests such as this one in 2009 were sentenced to harsh prison terms. (AP)

China’s jailed Uighurs: Out of sight, not out of mind

For the first time in more than a decade, China is not the world’s worst jailer of the press in CPJ’s annual census of imprisoned journalists. Among the 27 jailed in China, one group has seen a massive jump in imprisonments. In another first since CPJ began taking its census, more than half of those…

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Defending the middle ground of online journalism

It’s easy to use polarizing descriptions of online news-gathering. It’s the domain of citizen journalists, blogging without pay and institutional support, or it’s a sector filled with the digital works of “mainstream media” facing financial worries and struggling to offer employees the protection they once provided. But there is a growing middle ground: trained reporters…

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A new set of media regulations in China is attempting to control the growing influence of social media users. (AFP)

China’s new rules step up state control of reporting

China’s latest media regulations, issued Thursday in a bid to take some steam out of microblogs that increasingly drive the country’s news agenda, signal an increased role for the state in drafting and enforcing press standards.

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Keeping a website alive behind the Great Firewall

Wednesday’s post, “Advice for colleagues on the digital front lines,” offered practical advice for keeping a website up and running in a hostile political environment. But such measures are not universally applicable. Sky Canaves, CPJ’s new East Asia and Internet consultant in Hong Kong, sent this reality check for Internet writers in China, where tighter…

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It's not clear whether Beijing will require licensing of social media sites or users to register under their real names. (Reuters)

Planning the next steps in Chinese media control

In the latest sign of increasing pressure on Chinese companies to tighten control of the Internet, Chinese authorities convened an unusual seminar in Beijing for senior executives of 39 major enterprises involved in Internet services, technology and telecommunications.

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The China Internet Information Center counted 420 million Internet users in China in the middle of 2010. (AP)

China confronts Internet rumors and trashy TV

Along with cracking down on what it considers trashy TV — China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) said Tuesday that it will limit entertainment and add more news and other programs that “build morality and promote the core values of socialism” — the government is going after what it calls rumor mongers…

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In Hong Kong, a protester holds a portrait of the jailed writer Liu Xianbin. (Reuters)

In lawsuit, Chinese writers allege Cisco aids government

Three Chinese writers who have spent time in prison for articles published online are suing California-based Cisco Systems Inc., according to international news reports. The suit accuses the company of providing information and technology to Chinese authorities that facilitated the writers’ detentions–allegations that Cisco flatly denies. Chinese security officials have already interrogated one of the…

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Schlesinger (Reuters)

Schlesinger: ‘Media, Murdoch, and social responsibility’

CPJ board member David Schlesinger, who is the chairman of Thomson Reuters in China, delivered a speech today at a conference sponsored by Caixin magazine. He touched on several current issues, and found lessons in the News of the World case that are relevant to journalists everywhere. And I particularly like his description of China’s…

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The highs and lows of investigative reporting in China

Veteran investigative journalist Wang Keqin has always been positive about his chosen career, characterizing media restrictions in China as a cycle with ups and downs. In an interview for CPJ’s October 2010 special report “In China, a debate on press rights,” he told CPJ that “there was a big fall-off in reporting freedom in 2008…

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2011