Dark Journalism - Forbes.com

An article in July 21th Forbes Asia tells this story of "Dark Journalism" or "Black Journalism" in China. The major incomes of Chinese journalists come from extortion or payoff to cover or uncover the reported target.This might also happens/happened in other countries. Restaurant owners payoff journalists in all sorts of different ways for getting a good review. However it seems to go beyond the extreme of protocol. But who's protocol is it?

Dark Journalism - Forbes.com

Censorship isn't the only thing wrong with Chinese reporting. The other one is a current of corruption

"There are many mines that have their own media consultant," says journalist Wang Keqin, who has investigated illegal mines in Shanxi. "Once the mine has an accident, all the reporters come, and the mine's media consultant would give red envelopes based on what kind of media you are. CCTV might get 50,000 to 100,000 [yuan, or $7,250 to $14,500], Xinhua might get 50,000. For provincial level media, it could be 30,000, and for small newspapers it could be a couple thousand to 20,000. This money is called the 'make-you-shut-up fee,' and it's also called the 'media public relations fee.'" Xinhua, for its part, denies having had any case of corruption in recent years and says it would fire a journalist found to have taken hush money.

I recently encountered an interesting episode heard at work. Someone had called up a company claiming to negotiate a huge order on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party. The buyer claimed to be a liaison trading company for the communist party. "I am buying these for the government", he said.

The process dragged for a month with proposals of under table percentage, finding a broker accpeted by both sides. Finally the order faxed, the broker traveled to China to sign the contract, brought more gifts paid off all the "entertainment" fees. It turned out to be a fraud.

These reminded me of Jared Dimond notion in his "Guns, germs and steel" . Except for the geo-ecological conditions, civilization needs large & dense populations so there are diversifications of functions in the entity. Are we going to see China cilivation emerging to conquer the world for the next couple of decades?

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