Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom - World Press ...
Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom - World Press ...
Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom - World Press ...
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<strong>Beijing</strong> <strong>Olympics</strong> <strong>2008</strong>: <strong>Winning</strong> <strong>Press</strong> <strong>Freedom</strong><br />
10<br />
Olympic Games Executive Director, Gilbert Felli, gave the Committee to Protect Journalists<br />
in Lausanne in November 2006, and the line has barely changed since.<br />
Nor is this a situation in which China can claim that it is being forced to accept Western<br />
standards of governance through some sort of unwarranted interference in its internal<br />
affairs. After competing with four other cities in 2001, it entered into a contractual<br />
agreement with the International Olympic Committee to host the Games. One of the<br />
promises it made was that it would fix its media problem. When skepticism arose back<br />
then, both sides assured the world that by <strong>2008</strong>, China would have moved on from its<br />
increasingly archaic censorship policies.<br />
Unfortunately, after seven years of avoidance and delay, we now must hope that things<br />
will get better in the short period before the start of the Games. Otherwise, the 25,000 to<br />
30,000 visiting journalists can expect some challenges when they cover the Games and<br />
particularly when they cover the China that lies beyond the Games’ venues.<br />
Resident foreign correspondents already assume their phones are tapped and their e-mail<br />
scanned, particularly if they are the sort of reporter who digs deeper into controversial<br />
issues. They also know they are running the risk of a confrontation if they look too closely<br />
at issues like the military or Taiwanese independence, pro-democracy activists, HIV/AIDS<br />
villages, the Falun Gong, or underground churches that meet without the government’s<br />
permission. The pressure has already started and will increase on groups that might try to<br />
pull off a demonstration to catch the attention of foreign cameras in <strong>Beijing</strong>.<br />
But, more importantly, newcomers to reporting in China should realize that their Chinese<br />
counterparts are not allowed to play by the same rules. And that particularly applies to the<br />
thousands of young production assistants, translators, gofers and fixers they will be hiring<br />
to help them once they start to spread out across the country.<br />
Experienced Chinese journalists know the limits of their freedom. The Committee to<br />
Protect Journalists has not spoken to any of them who say they plan on breaking new<br />
reporting ground while the Games are on - though some have wistfully said they wished<br />
the sort of relaxation of rules for foreigners would be extended to them.<br />
It is the younger college students and recent graduates, with the language skills and<br />
enthusiasm to catch the eye of a foreign correspondent, who will be more at risk. We are<br />
concerned that when foreign news teams arriving in <strong>Beijing</strong> hire local Chinese assistants,<br />
they will place demands on them that might put them in jeopardy.<br />
Reporters who ask their Chinese hires to arrange potentially dangerous meetings, say with<br />
activists, or to visit an HIV/AIDS village, or get advance information on potential<br />
demonstrations that the government will want to quash, might be putting their Chinese<br />
colleagues at risk. It is not inconceivable that they will be made to pay a price, if not<br />
during the Games, then afterwards, when the world’s attention has moved on.<br />
Clearly, these are not the open Games the world has become accustomed to, or the<br />
Games we were promised in 2001. After the revelations of corruption involved in Salt Lake