Fire alarm

‘Have you heard of the fire at the office?’ my friend asked soon after we were seated in a bar.

‘No. When did it happen?’ I was concerned.

‘Just recently,’ my friend answered matter-of-factly. ‘The culprit was the cable connecting the neon lights on a billboard. Because it is on the twentieth floor, the black marks left behind on the board are still visible even from afar. But the fire has never been reported. Officially it simply never happened’.

‘Why so?’ I was curious.

‘Immediately after it was spotted, Ms B assembled a top team to come up with a press release in case any of our media rivals might want to report the incident. But the press release was never allowed to leave her hands. The billboard was installed on the building that houses the government media regulator. Once the regulator found out the truth, a total blackout on the incident was imposed. Among our journalist friends who know what happened, we are a laughing stock. They said we seemed to believe that if we covered our own eyes, nobody else would be able to see’.

Despite my many visits to the broadcasting building I had never noticed the scorch marks. Perhaps I was not looking. Yet over the years, one of the common subjects of conversation with my colleagues would be the integrity of working as a journalist in China. Interference from ‘above’ came in many forms: regular text messages to ban the coverage of certain events or incidents; the downgrading of a major story to make it sound less political or significant than it really was; and, in an incident still fresh in my memory, the termination of a scheduled programme half way through its transmission at the mere mention of some harmless religious rituals.

This constant interference has not deterred every talented journalist from doing his and her job within the many visible (and invisible) restrictions that are imposed on them. Indeed, some of my close friends are as brave and hardworking as ever, despite the frustrations that the conscientious must endure. Yet I also know of some talented broadcasters who have vowed that they will never work in the newsroom as long as the system continues.