Wilson Lau New Media

The questions and answers section of Mr Bob Dietz’s talk last night, who was in Hong Kong to promote the Committee to Protect Journalists’ annual report, was thought-provoking. One item discussed was the killing of a journalist Lan Chengzhang by thugs when he was “doing his job” reporting on illegal coal mines in Shanxi province in China. What originally seemed to be a case of a journalist sacrificing his life for journalistic truth took a different turn when it was later revealed that Mr Lan might have visited the mine to get more than just information of illegal coal mining. The editor of China Trade News, which employed Lan at the time, said he had not asked Lan to go to cover illegal coal mining in Shanxi.

According to a report by Peter Ford of the Christian Science Monitor , Shanxi government officials launched a campaign against “fake journalists” who extort money from mine owners in return for not reporting their activities. Blackmailing by “fake journalists” has become a growing industry in China. The respected Southern Weekly (a more independent newspaper in China) quoted a former Shanxi bureau chief of China Trade News as saying that reporters had been expected to bring in 100,000 yuan (around US$12,500) each in 2006, of which they could keep a third, continued Mr Ford’s report.

Mr Dietz said CPJ approached officials in Shanxi in its investigation of Lan’s case. I just wonder, due to the dubious motive of Lan’s visit to the illegal coal mines in Shanxi, whether it would be better if CPJ referred this case to some human rights organization instead. If the allegation by the Shanxi provincial government turns out to be true, this case is about criminals extorting money from other criminals and my question is why should CPJ get involved? Mr Dietz answered this in part by saying the CPJ looked at cases when someone was killed when he/she appeared to be doing a journalistic job. As people in a profession that the public relies upon to find out the truth, CPJ should find out the “true” motives behind these “journalists’ reporting activities” before allocating resources to pursue the cases. In the Philippines, there were a few cases of kilings of journalists. A majority of these cases involve radio broadcast journalists in the provinces and they were employed by politicians to use the broadcast as a forum to attack their political rivals. Are they “true journalists” or just “some people working for propaganda organizations”?

Another issue discussed at Mr Dietz talk was a strategy by international news organizations to outsource risk by employing locals to cover very dangerous conflicts, like Iraq. CPJ reported 32 journalists killed on the job in Iraq, and out of them 30 were Iraqis. This is an ethical dilemma. One can say it is “outsourcing the risks”. Or one can say that a news organization sends locals to do something so dangerous because its is too risky to send its own reporters, that the costs are too high if its own reporters are killed while on duty. Mr Dietz and Arnold, another veteran journalist at the talk, responded to my question by saying locals know how to deal with the situation better than foreign correspondents, they have their network of contacts, how they get their adrenalin rush and job satisfaction, etc. But no one wants to get killed on the job. Were these locals died while on duty given adequate protection and clear guidance about when to stop? Doesn’t the statistics just show what the real situation is?