Olympics: This site is banned in China
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…
Olympics: Gee whiz, good-bye
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…
Olympics: Qik! Get me my camera!
Despite all the security around the Games, two protesting groups did manage to get their messages out yesterday. Students for a Free Tibet managed to climb two light standards near the heavily guarded, iconic Bird’s Nest Stadium and display pro-Tibet banners for more than an hour. Later in the day, three Americans protesting China’s birth…
Olympics-China Media Watch: Nationalist fervor and the Olympics
Basketball star Yao Ming carried the Olympic torch through Tiananmen Square today in the triumphant final leg of a relay fraught with protest. His long-legged saunter under the gaze of Mao’s portrait captured headlines in today’s Web news outlets, along with speculation about who will light the torch at the opening ceremony of the Games on Friday. Also…
Olympics: Damaging video leads to new police rules
International advocacy may have had a role in prompting the reported new rules for police in dealing with journalists covering demonstrators during the Games, but the most likely cause was the damage to China’s international image from the widespread video of cops roughing up a few Hong Kong camera crews.
Olympics: Some reporters arrive in Kashgar
Foreign journalists have started making their way to Kashgar today after the official Xinhua News Agency reported that 16 police officers were killed when two terrorists drove a truck into an electricity pole and threw two home-made explosives sometime around 8 a.m. Monday. So far, the few foreigners who have made the double-hop plane connection…
Olympics: Kashgar may be a media test
Coverage of today’s attack on a police station in Kashgar will be important to watch. The coming hours will determine if the government’s more liberal rules on foreign reporters’ travel will be observed or ignored. The policy–which ostensibly allows foreign media to travel and interview people freely–was put into place in January 2007 as part…
Olympics: The Games Aren’t Political?
Last week’s dispute over Internet access for foreign reporters is still reverberating, only partially resolved. More Web sites have become available to reporters inside the Olympic Games’ Main Press Center and around the country, although plenty remain blocked (those perceived as being backed by the Falun Gong and those supporting Tibetan independence most notably). Amnesty…
IOC must act to curb Chinese restrictions on media
New York, July 29, 2008–The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the International Olympic Committee to investigate reports that Internet connections within the Games’ Main Press Center, at the heart of the Olympics facilities in Beijing, have been censored and access to some Web sites has been restricted. Reuters and other news agencies reported that…