INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM IN CHINA TODAY

Abstract

The situation of investigative journalism in China is precarious. There are serious pressures from both the party-state and advertisers that have reduced the opportunities for this kind of journalism. On the other hand, investigative journalism has proved a very important tool in the economic development of some newspapers, and has been integrated into their organizational structure as well as providing what might be termed a professional ideology for journalists. But as the pressures on news organizations have grown, they have been forced to respond. Some, notably television but also many newspapers, have more or less abandoned investigative journalism. Others attempt to retain the practice, but adopt a very cautious strategy. In some cases, however, the market position of the newspaper and the self-identity of the journalists mean that they retain a strong commitment to investigative journalism. In this, they are aided by the development of the Internet, which provides a good source for stories, an arena in which it is possible to publish material that could not appear in the traditional media, and a way of ensuring that sensational stories gain a wider audience. On the other hand, even those newspapers that pride themselves on maintaining their commitment to this kind of journalism have developed strategies to minimize the negative political and economic consequences of their activity. The article concludes that while investigative journalism in China faces a difficult future, it is very far from entirely defunct.

Keywords:

• Chinese media–power relation
• industrialization
• investigative journalism
• media organizations
• professionalization

Acknowledgements

Thanks go to the Southern Metropolitan Daily and the Dahe Daily. Special thanks to all journalists who agreed to be interviewed and allowed their work to be observed. They are, of course, not responsible for any viewpoints expressed in this article.

Notes

1. This article is based upon extensive fieldwork undertaken between 2004 and 2007. Seventy-one Chinese journalists in six cities were individually interviewed. The interviews ranged from one to three hours. Questions covered a range of topics including personal background, professional claims, conceptions of organizational professionalism, the stories of their investigative reporting, and the strategies they used in investigating them. In addition, participant observation in the investigative journalism section of the Southern Metropolitan Daily in Guangzhou and the Dahe Daily in Zhengzhou was conducted over a period of six months in 2006. There are three main reasons for choosing these two newspapers. First, both enjoy substantial circulations and reputations for investigative journalism. Second, in more than 10 years of development, the two newspapers have witnessed similar political crackdowns and similar shifts in newspaper management. Third, the papers are located in suitably comparative sites for research—Guangzhou is a rich, developed, seaside city in the rich Eastern Part of China, while Zhengzhou is an inland, poor, developing city in the poor Middle Part of China.

2. In February 2006, Li Gang, the President of a Flat-owners’ Committee in the Huanan Xincheng residential block in Guangzhou was beaten up by employees of the two real-estate companies against whom the flat-owners were protesting. He was badly injured and lost his spleen.

3. In October 2004 online rumours suggested that Niuniu, a young woman who invested in and directed a film called Sheep with Wings, and boasted a personal fortune of about one million dollars, was the daughter of a high official of the Chinese Communist Party in Shenzhen. Two reporters in the Southern Metropolitan Daily made investigations and proved the rumours true.

4. On 15 August 2006, Qing Zhongfei, a civic official in Peng Shui County, Chongqing City, wrote a poem and distributed it to his friends via text messages. In the poem he made comments about current affairs and criticized the performance of politicians in Peng Shui County. On 11 September 2006 he was arrested by local police and accused of slandering the County governor, the CCP boss at the County level, and another high-ranking County official. More than 40 other people were investigated by the police in this case. A journalist from the Southern Metropolitan Daily reported this case as well as the corruption in Peng Shui County in October 2006.

5. On the evening of 15 March 2002, Gao Yingying, an 18-year-old female waitress in the Baoshi Hotel in Xiangfan City, Hubei Province, was found dead. The local police concluded that Gao Yingying committed suicide. But Gao's family believed their daughter was killed by officials, as there was a good deal of evidence, including sperm stains found on her underwear, that pointed to this alternative conclusion. They refused to cremate Gao's corpse. The police seized Gao's corpse and forced her family to cremate it. The public in Xiangfan City believed the death of Gao Yingying was the responsibility of the local CCP boss. They believed Gao was thrown from the window of the tenth floor of the hotel for resisting an attempted rape. The event was not properly investigated until the CCP boss of Xiangfan City was arrested for corruption in 2005. In 2006, a journalist from the Southern Metropolitan Daily went to Xiangfan City to investigate this corruption and discovered the case. Several months later, he began an investigation which drew the attention of higher levels of government to the death of the young woman.

6. Two hospitals—the Zhengjiang People's Hospital (zhengjiang renmin yiyuan) and the Shanghai Oriental Hospital (Shanghai Dongfang Yiyuan)—were suspected of conducting experiments on living human beings by the victims’ families and other medical experts. Journalists from the Southern Metropolitan Daily reported the events and listed the main reasons for their suspicions.

7. Yang Wu and Wu Ping were the owners of a house who refused to move and accept compensation for forcible relocation offered by real-estate developers in 2004. Eventually, their house was the only one remaining in the block, and, was popularly called a “nail house”. The local government in Chongqing City ordered them to move in 2007. The event was first discussed in Internet fora and then covered in the Southern Metropolitan Daily as an online story. The newspaper coverage attracted the attention of national media and numerous subsequent reports.

8. In January 2007, Lan Chengchang, a Shanxi journalist, was beaten to death by a mine owner and his employees during an interview in Datong City. The mine owner alleged that Lan was a fake journalist and that they had beaten him because he demanded money. A journalist from the Southern Metropolitan Daily saw a report of the event on a website and investigated. He wrote the first newspaper report which proved extremely influential and generated considerable journalistic interest with many journalists coming to Datong City to follow up the story.

9. The Xiamen XP Project was a plan to develop an industrial chemical plant in Xiamen City. It was believed that it would cause permanent and serious pollution of the environment. Xiamen citizens protested, and the domestic media reported on the project and the opposition. Eventually, the project temporarily halted.

10. In the Shanxi Brickfield Scandal, thousands of children were discovered to have been sold and forced to work as slaves in illegal brickfields. Many had been tortured by the owners.

11. Both of the terms “Public Opinion Monitoring Reports” and “Critical Reports” refer to reports that criticize corruption and wrongdoing, especially that of officials.

12. On 25 August 1997, the then Dahe Culture Daily (later renamed the Dahe Daily) carried a report about a traffic accident. The report caused considerable indignation in Zhengzhou, as the driver, Zhang Jinzhu, was a senior police official. The paper followed up the story for the next four and half months, until the driver was executed for the crime of “culpable homicide” (gushi sharen zui).

13. According to interviews with investigative journalists and managers at the Southern Metropolitan Daily; 5000 RMB is roughly $US730 and the monthly salary of a journalist in Guangzhou is normally around 5000 RMB.

14. According to interviews with journalists and Editors-in-Chief at the Dahe Daily.

15. One major limitation of online forums, which are characterized by a great deal of attention to social and political topics and a high degree of public participation, is that they lack “interview rights” (caifangquan). This means that the Internet sites cannot assign their staff to interview people and write stories on their own behalf.

16. “Shuang gui” is the intra-party punishment used by the CCP to discipline members who commit crimes.

17. The 2004 riot in Wanzhou City was prompted by the beating of a peasant labourer by two people who claimed to be officials. The incident led to a violent demonstration by thousands of individuals. The 2005 riot in Chizou City was sparked by a relatively trivial traffic incident and led to violent scenes involving tens of thousands.

18. A-Xing was a young migrant worker in Guangzhou. He travelled from a poor village to Guangzhou in order to make money. He killed his manager because the manager fired him and refused to pay him the rest of the salary that he was owed.

19. In this case, a village “substitute” female teacher had not been paid her salary for long time. A substitute teacher (daike jiaoshi) refers to a teacher who perhaps has not been well-trained and certificated by the State, who is paid by local people for a temporary teaching position in a (village) school. She was forced into prostitution in order to raise money to support her family, especially to pay the tuition fees of her three younger brothers.