MCLC: CCTV producer dismissed

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: CCTV producer dismissed
***********************************************************

Source: Sinosphere Blog, NYT (12/2/13):
http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/02/cctv-producer-says-he-was-di
smissed-for-questioning-coverage/

CCTV Producer Says He Was Dismissed for Questioning Coverage
By AUSTIN RAMZY 

A producer for China Central Television has posted a defiant open letter
on the Internet saying the state-run broadcaster fired him after he
questioned its decision to air the confession of a prominent online
commentator accused of visiting prostitutes.

In the letter, which he posted shortly after midnight, Wang Qinglei, who
worked on prominent CCTV news programs including “24 Hours” and “Face to
Face,” criticized the network for its role in China’s campaign to curb
Internet gossip and slander — a crackdown that critics say is aimed not
just at rumors but also uncomfortable truths, like exposés of official
corruption.

By midday Monday, the letter had been deleted from China’s most popular
microblog platform but it was still circulating online and receiving
support from Chinese journalists who saw Mr. Wang as a victim of the
country’s restrictive media environment.

“These truths are the best record of Chinese reporters’ helplessness,
sorrow, distress and worry,” wrote Wu Fei, a media professor at Zhejiang
University, in a Sina Weibo post about Mr. Wang’s letter. Mr. Wu’s post
was later deleted too.

“Our foreign colleagues can be dismissed for not speaking the truth, but
our domestic colleagues can lose their jobs if they love speaking the
truth too much,” a Chinese journalist, Liu Zhiming, wrote
<http://weibo.com/1684232061/AlocmAfeR> on his microblog.

Mr. Wang’s complaint centered on the case of Charles Xue, a Chinese-born
American tech investor who was arrested in Beijing in August. Mr. Xue, a
“Big V,” or prominent online commentator, whose microblog had more than 12
million followers, was later shown on television confessing to visiting
prostitutes and was sentenced to administrative detention.

Much of the official coverage of Mr. Xue criticized his prominent position
as an online voice, noting that he had said his wide readership made him
feel like “a king on the Internet.”

In his letter, Mr. Wang said that CCTV had crossed a line and taken on the
role of a prosecutor in the case. “CCTV ignored the legal issue of due
process, abandoned rational thought and took the moral high ground,” he
wrote. “It replaced the law with footage loaded with commentary and
adopted the logic of guilty until proven innocent to imply that some ‘Big
Vs’ are rumormongers.”

Reached by telephone, a representative of CCTV’s commentary department
confirmed that Mr. Wang was leaving the network but offered no other
details. The representative said she was unaware of his online posting
about his departure.

Mr. Wang said in a brief telephone interview that he had initially been
suspended and dismissed in early November after writing a microblog post
criticizing CCTV’s handling of the Xue case. He said he had intended his
post as a private message, not meant for public dissemination, but that he
had still fallen afoul of the network’s restrictions on what employees say
on their personal accounts. He said he posted his letter after completing
the paperwork to leave CCTV.

Mr. Wang had angered his bosses before by questioning the official line in
news coverage. Two years ago, after a train crash near the eastern city of
Wenzhou killed 40 and raised widespread public doubts about China’s
high-speed rail network, Mr. Wang was suspended by CCTV after working on a
program that interviewed survivors of the crash and questioned whether the
railway ministry had ignored safety concerns in its rapid development of
high-speed rail, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said
<http://www.cpj.org/2011/08/chinese-tv-producer-suspended-for-crash-reporta
ge.php>.

Mr. Wang’s criticism of CCTV’s coverage of the online rumor campaign comes
as Chinese officials have declared victory in their efforts to clean up
the Internet. “If we should describe the online environment in the past as
good mingling with the bad, the sky of the cyberspace has cleared up now
because we have cracked down on online rumors,” Ren Xianliang, vice
minister of the State Internet Information Office, told foreign reporters
in Beijing last week, The Associated Press reported
<http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/china-claims-victory-scrubbing-
internet-21055948>.

Officials say the crackdown was necessary because the Chinese Internet had
become rife with smears spread by people who profited from tearing down
reputations. The official effort to clamp down on online rumors included
the issuance of new rules from China’s highest court that set penalties of
up to three years in prison for bloggers whose libelous messages received
more than 5,000 views or were re-posted more than 500 times.

Mia Li contributed research.