MCLC: Reuters reporter won't receive visa

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Reuters reporter won't receive visa
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A report about list member Paul Mooney's visa troubles.

Kirk 

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Source: NYT (11/9/13):
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/world/asia/reporter-for-reuters-wont-rece
ive-china-visa.html

Reporter for Reuters Won’t Receive China Visa
By ANDREW JACOBS 

BEIJING — The Chinese government has rejected the visa application of a
veteran American journalist who had been waiting eight months to begin a
new reporting job in China for Thomson Reuters, the company said.

The reporter, Paul Mooney, said the Chinese Foreign Ministry told Reuters
on Friday that it would not grant him a resident journalist visa but
declined to provide a reason. Mr. Mooney returned to the United States
last year after the expiration of his previous visa, which was sponsored
by The South China Morning Post, a newspaper based in Hong Kong.

The rejection comes at a time of rising tensions between foreign news
organizations and the government, which has been using its economic clout,
the issuance of visas and Internet controls to express displeasure with
coverage it deems unflattering.

“China has been my career,” Mr. Mooney, who has spent three decades
covering Asia, the last 18 years based in Beijing, said Saturday in a
phone interview. “I never thought it was going to end this way. I’m sad
and disappointed.”

The websites for Bloomberg News and The New York Times have been blocked
in China for more than a year following the publication of investigative
articles by both news organizations that detailed the wealth accumulated
by relatives of top Chinese leaders. Since then, employees for both
Bloomberg and The Times have been awaiting residency visas that would
allow them to report from China.

Such tactics appear to have had an impact. On Saturday, The Times detailed
a decision late last month by Bloomberg to withhold publication of an
investigative report, more than a year in the works, that explored hidden
financial ties between one of China’s wealthiest men and the families of
senior Chinese leaders. Company employees said the editor in chief,
Matthew Winkler, defended the decision by comparing it to the
self-censorship by foreign news bureaus that sought to remain working
inside Nazi Germany.

Mr. Winkler and a senior editor denied that the articles had been killed
and said they would eventually be published.

The Chinese government’s rejection of Mr. Mooney’s visa request will
certainly add to the anxieties of foreign reporters in China, many of whom
complain of cyberattacks, police interference and intimidation, especially
during the annual visa renewal process, currently underway, which
sometimes involves interviews with Foreign Ministry officials or public
security personnel.

In a statement, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China said, “Such
delays and lack of transparency merely add to the impression that the visa
process is being used by the authorities to intimidate journalists and
media organizations.”

Last year, Al Jazeera English shut its Beijing bureau after the
authorities refused to renew press credentials and the visa of its China
correspondent, Melissa Chan. Although they did not explain the reasons
behind Ms. Chan’s expulsion, the first from China in 14 years, it was
widely seen as retaliation for her hard-hitting coverage of Chinese
society.

An American currently based in San Francisco, Ms. Chan said the Chinese
government’s recent efforts to bully some of the largest foreign news
organizations would have an insidious trickle-down effect on smaller media
outlets, especially those from Southeast Asia and Africa that cannot
afford to lose what may be their sole correspondent in China. “It’s got to
have a chilling effect that leads to some level of self-censorship,” she
said in a phone interview on Saturday.

Mr. Mooney said he suspected that the government’s decision to deny him a
visa was punishment for his persistent coverage of human rights abuses in
China. In April, after submitting his visa application to the Chinese
Consulate in San Francisco, he was summoned for an interview, where he was
questioned about previous articles and asked to explain his position on
delicate issues like Tibet. The interview ended with a barely veiled
threat. “They said, ‘If we give you a visa, we hope you’ll be more
balanced with your coverage,’ ” he said he was told.

Mr. Mooney, 63, now living in Berkeley, Calif., said Reuters told him that
it would not continue pressing China over the issue.

Barb Burg, a spokeswoman for Reuters in New York, said, “We are in the
process of considering other posts for Paul within Reuters.” Calls to the
Foreign Ministry in Beijing went unanswered.