The danger of muzzling the media
Over and over since the high-speed rail crash at Wenzhou , the central government has stressed that it is committed to transparency. Premier Wen Jiabao has made the pledge and so, too, has the State Council. Despite the promises, though, much of the mainland's media has been gagged in its coverage of the July 23 disaster. It is lamentable that authorities have still not grasped that such censorship undermines their credibility and guarantees distrust.
There is a lesson to be learned from the accident in this respect. For five days after it occurred, the rescue effort and clean-up were in the full media and internet chat room glare with details open to scrutiny. Anger mounted as carriages containing bodies were buried, and raged when a young girl was found alive a day after officials claimed that there were no more survivors.
Unusually, the state-run media joined the criticism, with editorials and commentaries lambasting railway and rescue officials and tough questions being posed at press conferences.
Wen visited the crash site and called for trust and transparency, but two days later, propaganda officials stepped in. Their order for a scaling back of media coverage to only authorised statements was followed by all but a handful of publications. With the ban still in effect, the State Council's call on Tuesday for more transparent handling of emergencies is difficult to take seriously. Its edict that investigation results and other issues of widespread interest should be publicly disclosed in an objective and timely manner will not be credible unless there is independent scrutiny.
That can only happen through allowing the media to do its job of reporting events honestly and ensuring that there is open public discussion. Some newspapers and magazines have been permitted that latitude, but it has been denied to the majority of mass-circulation publications and the electronic media. Microblog postings deemed sensitive continue to be removed while the infamous 'great firewall' blocks words like 'Wenzhou' from internet search engines. This only fuels suspicions that a cover-up has taken place - a suggestion rejected by deputy railways minister Lu Dongfu in a recent China Central Television interview.
For the government, it seems, criticism equates to a threat to its authority. Muzzling the media and internet, is intended to keep a cap on dissent and ensure stability. To calm the anger over the rail crash, officials have promised changes to how investigations are handled. That is a start. But there is also a need for the media to be free to do its job. In that way, lessons can be learned and similar tragedies hopefully avoided in the future.
