MCLC: Beijing News, clown with a conscience

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Anne Henochowicz <annemh at alumni.upenn.edu>
Subject: Beijing News, clown with a conscience
***********************************************************

Source: China Media Project (5/5/12): http://cmp.hku.hk/2012/05/05/22552/

The Beijing News: a clown with a conscience
 <http://cmp.hku.hk/2012/05/05/22552/>By>By David Bandurski | Posted on
2012-05-05

May 4, 2012, was a day of feverish conversation on Chinese social media
about editorials in four Beijing newspapers attacking the United States
for its “scheming” over the case of blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng
<http://cmp.hku.hk/2012/05/04/22365/>. Much of the response domestically
to the editorials in China was negative, something propaganda leaders may
not have adequately anticipated, and it appears that Chinese authorities
responded late in the evening by launching a purge of social media posts
about the editorials.

Here are several “permission denied” (forcibly deleted) posts documented
in the Weibo archive at the Journalism & Media Studies Centre that offer
of flavor of the response to the editorials:

POST 1 
<http://research.jmsc.hku.hk/social/index.py/singleSinaWeibo?id=34419663711
51268>
北京日报写的盲人事件评论，这句话说的最对：“13亿中国人没有那么好瞒哄，也没有那么
好利用”

POST 2 
<http://research.jmsc.hku.hk/social/index.py/singleSinaWeibo?id=34419550845
55637>
上的不同面。刚才有朋友问我这事接下来咋整，我说上面派人陪病人一家逛逛公园多好，
孩子们都在。正好他说七年没过过星期日了。//@江赛春:北京日报的文章难道
不是上面授意的？//@老榕: 啥情况？//@珠海杨磊: 宁可相信这是YY //@香山网: 转发微
博

POST 3 
<http://research.jmsc.hku.hk/social/index.py/singleSinaWeibo?id=34419353797
17966>
看完北京日报的文章，我开始怀念张春桥了——至少他还算是读过书的人。

POST 4 
<http://research.jmsc.hku.hk/social/index.py/singleSinaWeibo?id=34419468088
84085>

Searches for “Beijing Daily in Chinese were also disabled on the evening
of May 4, bringing up a message that read: “These search results cannot be
shown according to relevant laws, regulations and policies.”

The move to arrest conversation of the Beijing editorials could point to
what might be characterized as one of the most high-profile failures of
Party propaganda we have on record, particularly as it happened in the
midst of important U.S.-China meetings.

While the editorials were presumably intended to send a strong message to
the United States of China’s unhappiness with the handling of the Chen
Guangcheng case, domestic attention seemed to turn almost entirely on the
tone and character of the editorials themselves, which many Chinese on
social media clearly found embarrassing and exasperating.

Moreover, the editorials may have had the unintended effect of drawing
more attention domestically to the Chen Guangcheng case than leaders
wished.

One of the most surprising and powerful pronunciations on “Editorial-gate”
came at exactly 00:00 today, May 5, 2012, as one of the papers involved,
The Beijing News — a paper with a proud though brief tradition of
professional journalism — posted a touching plea for forgiveness on its
Sina Weibo account <http://weibo.com/1644114654/yhFyH2AGA>, which has more
than 1.38 million followers.

The post was accompanied by a black-and-white photo of a circus clown
taking a sad and solitary drag on a cigarette, and read:

In the still of the deep night, removing that mask of insincerity, we say
to our true selves, “I am sorry.” Goodnight.
在夜深人寂时，卸下言不由衷的面具，对真实的自己说声“对不起”。晚安。