MCLC: CCTV producer dismissed (1,2)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: A. E. Clark <aec at raggedbanner.com>
Subject: CCTV producer dismissed (1)
***********************************************************

The article from the NYT blog quotes the producer as saying:  "CCTV
ignored the legal issue of due process, abandoned rational thought and
took the moral high ground." This sounds very odd. As far as I can tell
(and I'm not sure I found an authoritative text) this is a translation of
"央视不顾法律程序问题，而不假思索地站在摇旗呐喊的道德制高点."   Although
"taking the moral high ground" may be used ironically in English, there is
no presumption that it is ironic; I wonder if the phrase is more often
ironic in Chinese, even sarcastic.

If my guess is right, a better translation would be "got on their moral
high horse."

Your opinions?

Andrew

==========================================================

From: Timothy J.T. Pi <timothy.pi at gmail.com>
Subject: CCTV producer dismissed (2)

Here's a piece on the open letter written by the dismissed CCTV journalist
Wang Qinglei. 

Timothy

Source: China Real Time Blog, WSJ (12/2/13):
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/12/02/former-cctv-journalist-slams-
censorship-in-open-letter/

Former CCTV Journalist Slams Censorship in Open Letter

A letter posted online in the wee hours Monday by a former producer for
China’s state television broadcaster starkly voiced in public the
frustrations of a journalist working inside the country’s state-run media
machinery.

The letter was written by Wang Qinglei, a producer on well-known China
Central Television news programs “24 Hours” and “Face to Face.” It was a
response, Mr. Wang wrote, to being fired for having posted online
criticisms of CCTV’s coverage of Charles Xue, a Chinese-American investor
and prominent social media commentator arrested earlier this year in
Beijing on charges of visiting prostitute.

Saying at the outset that he left CCTV on Nov. 27 after spending 10 years
there, Mr. Wang described his disgust at the broadcaster’s reports on Mr.
Xue and other influential microbloggers: “We abused the public institution
of media to wantonly bombard an individual indiscretion. Journalistic
integrity and professionalism were nowhere to be found.”

The letter was initially posted on Mr. Wang’s verified account on the
Twitter-like Sina Weibo microblogging service only to be deleted. Numerous
other copies online were also deleted. Still Mr. Wang and other Weibo
users continue to repost and comment on it.

CCTV didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Mr. Wang didn’t
respond to messages requesting further comment.

Elsewhere in the letter, Mr. Wang savages the propaganda system that
censors news content. He contrasts CCTV’s shining new office tower and
expanded global operations with what he says is the broadcaster’s
declining reputation and influence – a trend he attributes to tightened
controls.

The voices we hope to broadcast and the attitudes we hope to express have
been silenced over and over again. A leader once joked with me: ‘When
you’re choosing topics for reporting, you have to take their measure.
Basically, whatever you feel you ought to report or want to report, that’s
what you can’t report.’ What a cruel and stifling reality for a journalist!

In the space of a year, we get upwards of a thousand propaganda orders.
We should ask ourselves: How many of these orders were issued in the
national interest, and how many were issued to serve the political and
economic interests of some individual, group or leader? And how often did
we castrate ourselves as a result of trying to fathom the attitudes of
high officials? Our leaders should understand that if the amount of news
you can’t report climbs too high, people won’t believe the news you can
report – because it’s propaganda chosen with a purpose.

The letter earned Mr. Wang messages of support from other journalists,
among them Liu Xiangnan, a reporter with the Economic Observer who has a
large social media following.

“Our foreign counterparts lose their jobs for not telling the truth.
Chinese reporters lose their jobs for telling too much truth,” Mr. Liu
wrote. “Those who lose their jobs for telling the truth are heroes in this
trivial little world.”

Sympathetic voices were dominant on Sina Weibo, whose users tend to be
liberal-leaning and fond of criticizing CCTV.

“Wang Qinglei’s letter was deleted almost instantly. That fact in itself
illustrates the problem,” wrote Zhou Xiang, a professor of communications
at Wuhan University.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Mr. Wang was
Temporarily suspended in 2011
<http://www.cpj.org/2011/08/chinese-tv-producer-suspended-for-crash-reporta
ge.php> for his critical coverage of a high-speed train crash near the
city of Wenzhou that unleashed a torrent of outrage online
<http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2011/07/26/weibo-watershed-train-collis
ion-anger-explodes-online/> and sowed doubt nationwide about the country’s
flagship infrastructure project.

– Josh Chin, with contributions from Liu Jing and Kathy Tian