China: toxic spill allows for media openness

Posted by John Burke on November 28, 2005 at 11:05 AM

"If individual leaders tell lies irresponsibly, this is an extremely terrible crime against society, because any rumor could trigger a social disaster." This quote from the China Economic Times is not one you may expect to hear from the Chinese press. But in the wake of a chemical spill that polluted a major river, the Chinese media has found some room to breathe.

Although slow to pick up on the disaster, the Chinese press has become increasingly critical of the manner in which it has been handled. Government officials originally declared that the northeast Chinese city of Harbin's water to be shut for four days due to maintenance, only to retract that statement a few hours later and admit that the Songhua river had been polluted. Newspapers did not let the reversed statement go unnoticed.

One reason that the press has been allowed to be critical is that the spill is not the fault of the government. But the press has been especially keen to take advantage of Chinese premier Wen Jiabao's latest economic plan which demands that local governments put environmental concerns ahead of economical.

In this respect, newspapers in Beijing and Shanghai have had more freedom reporting on the issue than the Harbin press, which is controlled by the city's propaganda authorities.

Will this faint taste of freedom of the press push the Chinese media towards independence from the state?

Source: Financial Times

ps. So much for openness. The Guardian reports that the propaganda department has demanded that all papers recall their reporters from Harbin and stop reporting on the incident.

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