Censored

First, a pointer to Rebecca Mackinnon’s Asia Wall Street Journal oped from yesterday, The Chinese Censorship Foreigners Don’t See . She makes many of the same points I did about how the Great Firewall is leaky, and the control of the Internet in China relies on much more than technology.

During the war in Vietnam, the daily press briefings by the American military were called the “Five o’clock Follies” by the foreign press corps that was on the receiving end of the military’s damage control aimed at controlling the story from Vietnam. The Beijing Games have their own daily press meeting, at 10 am, hosted…

Kristin Jones has been doing a great job monitoring the Chinese media and the more unofficial online world. One of the realities she has pointed out is the similarity of coverage across China’s media when sensitive issues crop up. There is a reason for that. An interesting piece, “Screws tighten on mainland journalists,” ran in…

British journalist John Ray speaks about his arrest by Chinese officials while covering a protest  for a free Tibet in Beijing. Also, for additional video footage of Ray being arrested by Chinese officials, visit the BBC Web site.

Before I bury them below today’s lengthy post, here are two quick items. If you are stuck behind someone’s filtering system, in China or anywhere else in the world, check out citizenlab’s guidebook in pdf. It tells you how to circumvent the restrictions. And today the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China updated its list of…

Despite reports of censorship, several Chinese newspapers have reported on the stabbing death in Beijing on Saturday of a relative of the U.S. men’s volleyball coach. But most of the reporting has been limited to official statements. Emphasizing that the attacker acted alone, Beijing Youth Daily yesterday quoted Beijing Olympic Committee official Wang Wei in identifying the victim…

Is this Web site, www.cpj.org, blocked in China? The answer is yes, although there are a few holes in the firewall. Being blocked means that China is not following through on its pledge of complete media freedom for the Games. It also means we are being heard by the government and our criticisms are hitting…

A few days ago I posted a gee-whiz piece about Qik.com, and a brief video piece posted on the site by Noel Hidalgo, who works under the online handle noneck. Hidalgo had beat all the news agencies covering the group of pro-Tibetan demonstrators who climbed two light poles outside the Bird’s Nest stadium and managed…

China’s media response to the story of the stabbing of two Americans was standard procedure: The government took charge of a sensitive story and determined what would be said. Hong Kong reporters might break new ground, but look at the mainland’s media coverage (here’s Kristin Jones’s analysis) and the only story you will see is…

Today’s news of an attack on tourists at a popular sightseeing spot in Beijing has been handled by Xinhua News Agency alone. Other news outlets are simply re-posting its account. This is the norm for sensitive issues. Xinhua is a part of the central government’s State Council and undergoes rigorous pre-censorship, which sets it apart from other Chinese news outlets (which are censored to…