黑暗的新闻业

 

 

 

审查制度并不是唯一影响中国报道的负面因素,另外一个负面因素是腐败

 

周建国和一个同事打着《中国日报》的旗号，驱车几个小时来到位于北京西南的山西省产煤中心地带静乐县的深山，这里5月31日发生一起有两人遇难的矿难。这起事故吸引了有魄力的媒体参与报道。在漫长的一天快要结束时，他们被安排登上一座快要毁坏的混凝土政府建筑的楼梯，去见一名静乐县负责生产安全的官员。

 

    但那就是报道停止的地方。关于事故的报道不会出现在报纸上，不论是《山西法制日报》还是其他新闻出版物。报社否认雇佣过叫周建国的人，周和他的同事拒绝《福布斯》的记者记录他们与负责生产安全的官员的会见。当他们十分钟的会见结束，一名被称为李主任的男子拒绝透露他们所讨论的事情。

 

在简短的会见中发生了什么使一起致命的矿难神奇地消失了？“黑暗的新闻业”，我们现场的向导，一名叫老赵的男子如是说，他自称商人和记者，安排我们与那两个记者见面。在前往李主任的办公室之前，那两个年轻人把老赵带到一边，然后坦率地解释了《福布斯》不能参与会见的原因，如果有外国人在场，“李主任是不可能付钱给他们的。”

 

奥运年是否会带来一个中国新闻业走向正直的新时代？还未可知。四川地震促使一些有胆量的中国记者挑战审查制度，寻求关于建筑物标准的丑恶真相。但是政府的干涉并不是影响揭露真相的唯一障碍。在中国黑暗的新闻业世界，无数的小型悲剧被例行公事地推到了幕下。记者们赶到矿难发生的现场并不是要调查它们而是去收取贿赂。死掉的矿工越多，给的报酬越丰厚，特别是国家级和省级新闻出版物的记者，媒体专家和中国的记者这样告诉福布斯。

 

这些贿赂只是中国普遍的支票薄新闻业现象的一部分，从记者在公司新闻发布会上领取新闻稿到新闻媒体将晚间新闻的宝贵时段出卖给记者以曝光威胁勒索目标。不象政府的新闻审查制度，这种腐败从各级内部困扰着中国新闻业。为金钱而交易是如此普遍，就象一名腐败的警察机构的正直警察，一名有良心的记者会遭到同事们的嘲笑。

 

“许多中国记者生活和工作在一个灰色地带，甚至是黑色地带。如果我揭露出所有事情我根本无法在中国生存，”经验丰富的调查型记者王克勤说，他报道过不诚实的记者及付费的问题。王今年因健康原因退休，他住在北京一幢中等面积的政府提供的公寓，每月领取160美元的基本工资。（记者每发一篇稿件可领取另外的奖金。）他没有自己的房产和汽车。

 

“如果你看一下工资单，大部分北京的记者和我挣一样的钱，但是为什么他们有自己的豪华汽车，住在别墅里？”王问。“因为他们用报道做交易，同官员和商人做交易。他们有大量的灰色和黑色收入。”

 

骗子装作是记者编造有破坏性的文章来进行敲诈，而新闻记者与其合作，作为兼职收入每年可赚取数百万。在中国媒体上，关于这样的报道已出现多年了。据《山西日报》报道，去年有四个人装作是国家电视台记者敲诈一家山西省煤矿检测站4万美元。2006年，《中国产经新闻报》湖南分社记者杨小青被控以所谓权威人士认定的“假”新闻敲诈一名党委书记，该新闻涉及该党委书记的非法土地交易。据《中国青年报》报道，两名国家级官方新闻机构新华社的记者，接受金条掩盖矿难。

 

事实上，腐败已深深植入中国新闻业的商业运作模式。新闻机构有时在许多城市建立分支机构，不是为了搜集新闻而是为了增加收入，中国的记者如是说。“他们实际上是在进行一个商业编辑运作，”戴维德.班德斯基，一位在香港大学中国媒体项目研究新闻业黑暗面的研究员这样说,“根本就没有什么新闻业。”

 

记者有很多渠道挣外快。在公司的新闻发布会上，钱被装进“红包”，实际上，一般是白色的信封，这已经约定俗成很多年了。时尚杂志的编辑版本和封面经常用来出售，为西方所不知的是，在产品发布会之外，还有礼品袋和去欧洲的游览。

 

然而最令人垂涎的媒体空间是中国中央电视台晚7点的新闻联播，拥有数千万的观众。有野心的低等级官员梦想着通过在这个时段的几秒种时间来美化他们在共产党中的形象。北京新闻学教授、前CCTV员工张江解释说：

 

“地方官员和企业家非常想在CCTV晚7点的新闻联播中出现。我曾听说过出价几十万元（或4万美元以上），”张说。“对于地方官员来说上电视很难，一旦他们能在电视上出现三秒钟或五秒钟，对他们的前途来说很有帮助，可以增加他们提升的机会，因此他们很乐意为此付出一百万。”

 

CCTV否认出卖任何新闻时段或有腐败的记者。但是，它同新华社一起证明，官方权力和大量市场延伸这两个中国新闻业支柱已使这个职业变得非常腐败。

 

“他们利用权力进行调查，就好象媒体的作用是一种政府职能，所以‘人们’用政治成本来换取商业所得，”班德斯基说，“正是这种商业化和控制之间的张力作用制造出一个腐败和虚假的乐园。”

 

这种几乎官方化的腐败现象如此根深蒂固，很少有记者敢去挑战它。中国青年政治学院的周泽，北京一名研究媒体的副教授，甚至说敲诈煤矿主可以变成一件好事，因为“增加了他们的成本，那些煤矿主可能会想，‘如果我不得不面对无止尽的敲诈勒索，我宁愿改善工作的安全条件’”。

 

一名山西的记者曾向福布斯出售了一部传说中记者在煤矿接受贿赂的视频，他说他和他的同事把这种做法叫“黑吃黑。”他解释说，“对于那些黑心的煤矿主，我们只有用这种手段对付他们。”

 

但这并不具有任何说明性。去年报道煤矿业有3786名工人死于矿难（还有一些未知的官方统计数字），作为以商业成本威胁他们的黑暗的新闻市场并没有减少矿难死亡的人数。

 

“有许多煤矿有他们自己的媒体顾问，”王克勤说，他曾调查过山西的非法煤矿。“一旦煤矿发生事故，所有的记者赶到，煤矿的媒体顾问就会根据媒体的种类分发红包。CCTV一般是5万元到10万元（7250美元到14500美元），新华社一般是5万元。省级媒体可拿到3万元，小型报纸从几千元到2万元不等。这个钱就叫‘封口费’，一般被称作‘媒体公关费’”。新华社否认近年来有任何腐败行为，并称如果发现记者收取贿赂将会开除该记者。

 

利益驱使着记者们，不论真的还是假的记者，为一个新闻事件不辞辛苦，并且雇用其他人来赚取更多的钱。我们的向导老赵，我们没有看到他索取贿赂，但他也为了将来的任务设法招募福布斯雇用过的司机成为一名记者，鼓励他会写作并不是做记者的首要条件。

 

       （本文由《参与》记者沧海翻译，原文附后。）

 

Dark Journalism

 

Censorship isn\’t the only thing wrong with Chinese reporting. The other one is corruption

 

Zhou Jianguo and a colleague, flying the flag of a Chinese daily newspaper, drove for hours into the mountains to get to a mine accident that killed two during the May 31 weekend in Jingle County in the coal-rich heartland of Shanxi Province, southwest of Beijing. It had taken enterprising journalism to get to this story. At the end of a long day they were set to march up the stairs of a dilapidated concrete government building to confront a county work-safety official about the accident.

 

But that\’s where the reporting stopped. No story about the accident ever appeared in the paper, the Shanxi Legal Daily, or in any other news outlet. The newspaper denies employing anyone named Zhou Jianguo. Zhou and his colleague refused to allow a FORBES reporter to observe the encounter with the work-safety official. When their ten-minute meeting was over, the two men and the official, a man addressed as Director Li, declined to say what they had discussed.

 

What happened in that brief encounter that could make a fatal mine accident magically disappear? \”Black journalism,\” according to our guide on the scene, a man known only as Old Zhao, a self-described businessman and journalist who arranged our meeting with the pair of reporters. Before going up to Director Li\’s office, the two younger men had huddled with Old Zhao, who then bluntly explained the reason FORBES couldn\’t go into the meeting. With a foreigner present, \”it would be impossible for Li to pay them.\”

 

Wasn\’t the year of the Olympics supposed to herald a new era of integrity in Chinese journalism? It has and it hasn\’t. The Sichuan earthquake inspired some courageous Chinese reporters to defy censors in pursuit of the ugly truth about building standards. But government interference isn\’t the only thing getting in the way of truth telling. In China\’s world of black journalism countless smaller tragedies routinely get shoved under the rug. Reporters race to the scene of coal mine accidents not to investigate them but to collect hush money. The more dead miners, the fatter the payoffs, especially for correspondents carrying the labels of leading national and provincial news outlets, media experts and Chinese reporters tell FORBES.

 

These bribes are part of a widespread culture of checkbook journalism in China, from reporters taking handouts at corporate press events to broadcasters selling precious airtime on the evening news to reporters blackmailing targets with the threat of exposure. Unlike government censorship, this corruption eats at one of China\’s more beleaguered professions from within its ranks. The trading of favors for cash is so prevalent that, like the honest cop in a corrupt police unit, an ethical journalist risks the scorn of colleagues.

 

\”Most journalists in China live and work in the gray areas, or even the black areas. If I disclosed everything I would not be able to survive in China,\” says veteran investigative reporter Wang Keqin, who has written about dishonest journalists and paid a price. Wang is on a recommended health leave this year, living in a modest government-provided apartment in Beijing and drawing his base salary of $160 a month. (Journalists are paid an additional amount per article.) He does not own property or a car.

 

\”If you look at the payroll, most of the journalists in Beijing make the same money as me, but why can they own luxury cars and live in villas?\” Wang asks. \”Because they use reports to make trades, trades with officials and businesspeople. They have a lot of gray and black income.\”

 

The shakedown artists include con men who pose as reporters and make up damaging articles with which to extort targets, and journalists who work in league with the lawbreakers they are supposed to cover, earning up to millions of dollars a year on the side. Scattered news reports about some of these excesses have appeared over the years in the Chinese media. Last year four people posed as national television reporters to blackmail a coal mine inspection station in Shanxi Province for $40,000, according to Shanxi Daily. In 2006 Yang Xiaoqing, a Hunan bureau reporter for China Industry & Economics News, was convicted of blackmailing a party secretary to suppress what authorities called a \”fake\” report about his crooked land dealings. In 2002 two journalists from the nation\’s official news service, Xinhua News Agency, accepted gold ingots to cover up coal mine accidents, according to China Youth Daily.

 

In fact, corruption is embedded in the business model of Chinese journalism. News outlets sometimes establish \”bureaus\” in far-flung cities not to collect news but to collect income, say Chinese journalists. \”They essentially run a business-editorial operation,\” says David Bandurski, a researcher at the University of Hong Kong\’s China Media Project who has studied the dark side of journalism. \”There\’s no journalism at all.\”

 

Journalists have many ways to drum up extra cash. At corporate press events cash-filled \”red envelopes\”–in reality, usually white envelopes–have been standard-issue for years. At fashion magazines editorial space and the cover are often for sale, in ways unknown in the West, and that\’s on top of the product-unveiling parties, the gift bags and the junkets to Europe.

 

Then there is the most coveted media space of all, a spot on China Central Television\’s 7 p.m. newscast, viewed by tens of millions. Ambitious low-level officials dream of snatching a few seconds of airtime to boost their profiles in the Communist Party. Beijing journalism professor Zhan Jiang, a former CCTV employee, explains:

 

\”Local officials and entrepreneurs would most prefer to be on the news broadcast on CCTV at 7. I\’ve heard that\’s like several hundred thousand [yuan, or more than $40,000],\” Zhan says. \”It\’s very hard for local officials to get on TV. Once they are on TV for like three seconds, five seconds, it would be very helpful to their futures and could increase their chances of getting promoted, and for that they would happily pay a million.\”

CCTV denies selling any airtime on its newscasts or having any corrupt reporters. But, along with the Xinhua News Agency, it exemplifies the twin pillars of Chinese journalism that make the profession so corruptible: official power and mass-market reach.

 

\”They\’re invested with power because of this continuing role of the media as a sort of state functionary, so [people] basically trade in that political capital for commercial gain,\” Bandurski says. \”It\’s this tension between commercialization and control, these two roles, that really create a garden of corruption and falsehood.\”

 

This almost official culture of corruption is so entrenched that few journalists dare to challenge it. Zhou Ze, an associate professor of media studies at China Youth University for Political Sciences in Beijing, even argues that blackmailing mine owners can be a good thing because \”it increases their costs. Those mine owners might think, \’If I have to face this kind of endless blackmail, I\’d prefer to improve work-safety conditions.\’\”

 

One Shanxi reporter who offered to sell FORBES a purported video of journalists taking payoffs at a coal mine says that he and his colleagues call what they do to mine owners \”black eating black.\” He explains: \”For those black-hearted mine owners, we have to use the black methods to deal with them.\”

 

But this is no system of accountability. For coal mines, which last year had 3,786 reported worker deaths (and some unknowable quantity not in the official statistics), this shadow market does not deter deadly accidents so much as treat them as a business expense.

 

\”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.

 

It is this profitable racket that can motivate reporters, real or not, to drive long distances on a story and to recruit others to help raise more cash. Our guide, Old Zhao, didn\’t seek hush money in our presence, but he tried to recruit the driver hired by FORBES to become a journalist for future missions, informing him that being able to write was not a prerequisite.

 

Additional reporting by Qu Wei.