Abstract
Misbehaviour and malpractices of Chinese journalists in recent years have brought media corruption under the spotlight. The lack of professionalism and scarcity of fully established ethics in media organisations have made the case worse. However, while Chinese media and academics concentrate narrowly on paid-for news or gag fee by prompting the enforcement of disciplinary restraints and ‘thought education’, this hot issue has been largely ignored by western scholars and has only been occasionally reported by some western media. Based mainly on prominent cases and document studies, this article classifies three major types of media corruption in the Chinese context: (1) individual red-envelope taking, (2) institutional profit seeking and (3) personal businesses benefiting from the identity of a reporter. It then explores two major endogenous causes of media corruption: media’s unique role in China’s political power structure and their monopoly in information collection and delivery. Two current countermeasures undertaken against this phenomenon in China are finally analysed.
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Notes
On 13 July 1983, the Shanghai-based Wenhui Newspaper opened a new column in its fourth page, ‘Ads for Goods’. It was the first trial for ads on a Party newspaper since 1949, which last only 1 month over but has been believed to open the Pandora’s box of media corruption in China. On 11 June 1987, a Beijing-based China Talents Newspaper published two versions, one only for two Beijing suburban districts and the other for audience nationwide. The difference is simply that the former had three extra pages of editorial Special Column publishing ads for the two suburban districts, which earned for the newspaper 21,500 yuan RMB. On 23 April 1993, a New York-based Chinese language World Journal published an article entitling ‘China’s Mainland Journalists Expertly in Making Money (dalu jizhe shengcaiyoudao)’. On 10 May of the same year, a Hong Kong-based United Daily News—established on 4 May 1992 and stopped publication on 16 Dec 1995—published a commentary to rebut media corruption phenomenon in mainland China. See Jin (2000) and Wu (2006).
Since 1978, China’s news media have continually been struggling to keep balance between two top benefits, social benefit (shehui xiaoyi) and economic benefit (jingji xiaoyi). Defined as socialist news media, the former has no doubt the top priority on the media agenda. However, financial pressures have consistently lured media bosses to put the latter first. This contradiction also appears in China’s educational reform and national healthcare system reform.
An unproved informal survey on the professional ethics in the news media circles in Wuhan and Hubei Province by Hu Guilin, claimed that 100 % news media have journalists seeking advertisers and sponsorship, 100 % news media take commissions by running specific columns and programmes from ‘cooperated’ or ‘coordinated’ parties, 90 % news media give a commission fee no <10 % of the total amount of advertisement to the journalist who brings it back and 80 % news media assign economic task to their journalists. See http://wtyu.blog.com.cn/archives/2006/1997355.shtml, also Jin (2006: 54).
On 22 Nov. 2004, China News Week published a feature story telling in detail how E’Dong Evening Newspaper made profit by blackmailing its subjects.
Alatas devotes two chapters to describe corruption in the Roman Empire and ancient China.
I searched with ‘media corruption (xinwen fubai)’ as key words from 1979 to 2009 on www.cnki.net, a leading Chinese academic paper database on 12 Sept 2010, and got no more than 50 articles addressing this issue. And only two articles were published in 1997 and 1999, and the rest in 2000s. If change the key words from ‘media corruption’ to ‘paid-for news (youchang xinwen)’, you can get more than 1,400 articles during this period, of which more than 800 were published in the first two decades since China’s economic reform in 1978.
Journalism professor Zhan (2007) had contended to deal with the problem of the corruption of newspapers bureaus by reforming China’s media system. Unfortunately, the media system he referred is in fact the way of operation within a media organisation—to separate the operation of news room from its commercial sector.
Government and political parties were main patrons of English newspapers since eighteenth century. The last time of newspaper to receive a secret grant from government was 1840. (Curran and Seaton 2003: 6) Today, the print press and broadcasting media are still targets of PR companies in most countries. See Farsetta and Price (2006) and International Public Relations Association (2002).
Traditionally, Chinese put money into red-colour envelopes as gifts between relatives and close friends for special occasions, such as wedding ceremonies, birthdays and Spring Festivals. This tradition is easily adopted as a way to bribe journalists for favourable reports. As a matter of fact, beneficiaries usually use common envelopes to hold money.
Nobody can tell clearly how much a journalist could get by taking red envelopes a month. And the sum of money in the red envelope varies occasionally according to different hosts and the level of news media. Generally speaking, the wealthier the host is, the more money journalists will receive; and the more authoritative and influential the media organisation is, the more money its journalists will accept.
This deliberately connoted that Wang was illegitimate as a journalist.
To some extent, this economic demand is a drive as well as a result of media reform since 1978.
An internal system of information delivery inside CPC newspapers, through which reports are classified as secrets of different levels and only read by cadres accordingly. Media play an ‘ear-and-eye’ function in this sense for senior officials to supervise bureaucracy at lower level, and for the central government to supervise local authorities. Xinhua and People’s Daily are the two major organisations with this function.
Based in Beijing, run by China Council for the Promotion of International Trade and China Chamber of International Commerce. Lan died after being employed by the newspaper for less than a month. For more details and commentaries on this case, see a data collection at http://cq.qq.com/zt/2007/journalis.
Nanfang Daily Group was established in mid-1990s with an annual ads income of about 270 million yuan. This ads income had increased fast to 2.3 billion yuan by 2003. And Nanfang Daily Group has been ranking first for decades in both circulation and ads revenue in China’s newspaper groups. Source from www.gx.xinhuanet.com/misc/2004-08/26/content_2747866.htm.
The story of strike was officially denied but circulated by new media like blogs, BBS, etc.
Senior Chinese leader stresses it’s principle that politicians run news websites. See Tian (2000).
Even in the circulation and ads operation, private investment can hold no more than 49 % of the share.
Articles 2, 3, 4, 17, 24 and 37, GAPP (2009).
That bloggers publish news stories they come across in their daily life is also illegal. It is hard to tell how this ordinance can be implemented while there are millions of blogs, BBS forums. But it is actually difficult for anyone to get access to sources if he/she has no press cards, and once your story provokes the authorities it is easy to get punished.
China has required foreign news agencies to distribute to media clients only through Xinhua for decades. And this arrangement will not change. See Hille (2009).
Articles 2 and 16, SCIO and MII (2005).
Changed to MRFT in mid-1990s and then SARFT in late 1990s.
It took effect on 15 Oct 2009.
During the early 1990s it was not allowed yet in China to establish private companies. Someone who wanted to start his/her own business would have to seek a state-owned unit as supervisor so that the enterprise could get official registration with a title of ownership by the whole people or collective ownership. This method is called ‘guakao’ and the company with that nature is described as having a ‘red hat’, implying a kind of protection from authorities.
More than ten times higher than the then bank interest rate of 1.8 %.
A central level newspaper established in 1986 and is now under the sponsorship of Ministry of Science and Technology. It has been chosen as a trial newspaper to establish modern enterprise system from 2010.
More details about the two journalists’ bribery case see People’s Daily (1994).
It was Shen’s tactics to fight directly against the authorities that most probably led him to death penalty. On 6 March 1993, China’s central bank—China People’s Bank issued a notice ordering Great Wall Company to stop illegal fundraising and to return the funds collected back to investors within a deadline. Shen not only did not follow the order but also chose to sue China People’s Bank. He even held two press conferences in Beijing to complain to domestic media as well as foreign media that it was the government’s arbitrary intervention that made difficult his business operation.
It is doubtable that the death penalty could effectively stop the increasing amount of private investment to meet the desperate demands of capital from private businesses. A circular issued by China People’s Bank in 1999 showed that over 7,900 illegal fundraising activities had taken place in various names by the end of 1998, with a total amount of illegal accumulation exceeding more than 39 billion yuan. See Peng (2008, p. 44).
Before the hearing the Xinhualing Procuratorate claimed that they had solid evidence to prove that Li Min had accepted more than 200 thousand yuan from her subjects, which is enough for a 10-year sentence (Chinese Criminal Law rules that the minimum punishment for taking a bribe of over 100 thousand yuan is 10 years in prison and the maximum is death penalty). But in the Court trial, the Procuratorate charged Li of accepting a bribe of 37 thousand yuan, far less than it declared before the trial. Zhu (2009) believed that there were probably a de facto plea bargain (China has not yet officially established this system) and some other arrangements under the table.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to express my greatest gratitude to Mrs. Jane Henderson, my supervisor, Senior Lecturer in the Laws of Eastern Europe at the Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College London, for her thoughtful comments on and careful proofreading of this paper. I am also very grateful to the Ford Foundation for its generous support for my PhD research as a 2007 IFP Fellow.
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Appendix
Appendix
Abb. | Full title | Title in Chinese pinyin |
|---|---|---|
ACJA | All-China Journalists Association | zhongguo jixie |
BjN | Beijing News | xin jing bao |
CC | Central Committee | zhongyang weiyuanhui |
CDI | Commission for Discipline Inspection | jilv jiancha weiyuanhui |
CPC | Communist Party of China | zhongguo gongchandang |
CPD | Central Propaganda Department | zhongxuanbu |
CTN | China Talents Newspaper | zhongguo rencai bao |
GAPP | General Administration of Press and Publication | xinwenchuban zongshu |
GmD | Guangming Daily | guangming ribo |
MC | Ministry of Culture | wenhua bu |
MII | Ministry of Industry and Information Technology | gongye he xinxihua bu |
MofCom | Ministry of Commerce | shangwu bu |
MRFT | Ministry of Radio, Film and Television | guangbo dianying dianshi bu |
MRT | Ministry of Radio and Television | guangbo dianshi bu |
NfD | Nanfang Daily | nanfang ribao |
PRC | People’s Republic of China | zhonghua renmin gongheguo |
SAIC | State Administration for Industry & Commerce | guojia gongshang xingzheng guanli ju |
SARFT | State Administration of Radio Film & Television | guojia guangbo dianying dianshi zongju |
SCIO | State Council Information Office | guowuyuan xinwenban |
Xinhua | Xinhua News Agency | xinhua she |
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Li, R. Media Corruption: A Chinese Characteristic. J Bus Ethics 116, 297–310 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-012-1464-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-012-1464-6