Freedom of the press: China and Hong Kong

This posting is very important. WAIS tries to present a balanced account of world affairs. I have been concerned about the one-sidedness of US reporting on critical areas like the Near East and China. The constant negative reports on China seem calculated to alienate Beijing, just as we seem determined to alienate the Muslim world. The posting on the South China Morning Post and Jasper Becker told only the plaintiff's side of the story. Bill Woo is the distinguished former editor of the St Louis Post-Dispatch, now a professor at Stanford, and much esteemed WAIS Board Member. Those who were at the WAIS globalization conference met him, His session on the globalization of the media was broadcast over Channel 27 last night and will be broadcast again over Channel 28 at 8 p.m. Bill sends me this message and attachment;

"I have been traveling (in China and Hong Kong, of all places). This memo to the staff by Thomas Abraham, editor of the South China Morning Post, is in response to the charges leveled against the paper by Jasper Becker, the sacked Beijing correspondent. As to which has the merit, I'm not prepared to say. Having edited a large paper (the St. Louis Post-Dispatch), I do know that staff matters -- particularly those involving disciplinary actions, dismissals, the reasons for publishing or not publishing certain stories -- can be excruciatingly complicated, and that the justice of it all seldom lies on one side or another. I also know that there usually is a predominant justice, though in this case I don't know enough to presume where it rests. Here is the memo:

"From Thomas Abraham, Editor of the South China Morning Post:

Over the last two days, Jasper Becker has made a number of allegations in the media about the reasons for his dismissal. I want to make it clear to all of you that the charges that he has made are untrue and I would like to set the record right on the issues he has raised.

1. Jasper has said that there was a long list of stories that were watered down or spiked. He has also said that he was not permitted to cover the labour protests at Daqing and has cited the refusal to allow him to go on an officially authorised trip to Tibet as evidence of self censorship. When I recently asked Jasper to come and see me, he was unable to substantiate his charges. He could not point to a single story that had been spiked. He did however say that he felt that some of his reports that ran on the China pages ought to have been on the front page. I have no doubt that many reporters feel that their stories ought to be on the front page. But this is a decision that I make based on news value and reader interest.
2. It is not true that he was not permitted to cover the recent labour unrest. He never offered to go, or even suggested that a reporter should be sent there, even though as Beijing bureau chief it was his job to alert the desk to major stories in the area, and respond to them. As there had been instances in the past when Jasper had not responded to suggestions from the China desk, the China editor decided finally to send someone from here.
3. He has suggested that he was not permitted to report on Falun Gong activities. This is untrue. In fact, during the last big Falun Gong protest, when 40 foreigners were detained in Tiananmen Square (which we ran on page 1), we badly wanted a story from the bureau. This was not forthcoming, and we relied on the wire services.
4. Regarding the Tibet trip which the Foreign Ministry organised to visit a school run by a blind British woman, I frankly did not see the news value in this, considering we had sent a staff member on a similar trip to Tibet last year and ran two pages of stories. When he spoke to me Jasper insisted it it was an interesting story, but did not suggest he would have been able to do any other stories.
5. Jasper claims funds have been deliberately withheld from the Beijing bureau to prevent its smooth operation. This is untrue. The Beijing bureau has been late in filing its bills for reimbursement, which is why there has been a delay in payments being sent to them. To suggest that this is a plot to stop the bureau from functioning is ridiculous.