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China at last tries to report the news first
Thu Nov 20, 2008 2:10am EST
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By Lucy Hornby
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese media's increased reporting of protests over land, labor and investment issues reveals an attempt by the government to manage the impact of bad news by acknowledging it, sources said on Thursday.
Propaganda authorities have issued a writ authorizing news organizations to report on unrest, rather than allow rumors to take hold among Chinese worried about the impact of the global financial crisis on the mainland's economy.
Strikes by taxi drivers and protests by newly laid-off workers have been reported regularly, as have riots in northwestern Gansu province this week and a mass petition in Beijing.
"The Chinese government has started to loosen its control on the negative information," an academic source close to propaganda authorities told Reuters.
"They are trying to control the news by publicizing the news," said the source, who declined to be named.
The shift, if continued, would be a bold move for China, which only legalized the reporting of the death toll from natural disasters in 2005.
A party official confirmed that the policy toward news had gradually changed this year.
"It's almost impossible to block anything nowadays when information can spread very quickly on the Internet, " he told Reuters.
"We also noticed that it will benefit us if we report the news first."
Chinese media were allowed unprecedented freedom in the first week after the devastating May 12 earthquake in Sichuan, which killed about 80,000 people and unified the country around the dramatic rescue effort.
But coverage shifted to accolades of central government leaders and soldiers as soon as questions began to surface about why so many schools had collapsed.
A blackout of bad news during the Beijing Olympics in August resulted in delayed reporting of milk tainted with melamine, that ultimately killed at least four babies and made thousands sick.
"The central government has permitted local authorities to publicize negative news themselves, with no need to report to upper governments any more," the academic said.
"They have a principle of 'report the facts quickly, but be cautious on the causes behind the facts'."
Official news organizations often lag behind reports posted on the Internet by bloggers and investigative reporters, and usually downplay any elements that might raise distrust of the Communist Party, which prizes stability. Continued...
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