Beijing forms city's own media watchdog to run after 'immoral' journalists
The Beijing municipal government has set up a committee to crack down on “immoral” media practices after recent graft scandals resulted in the detention of top mainland journalists.
The Beijing municipal government has set up a committee to crack down on “immoral” media practices after recent graft scandals resulted in the detention of top mainland journalists.
The commission, overseen by the municipal propaganda department, will supervise all employees from government-approved media outlets based in the capital.
Any malpractices, including false reporting, paid hack pieces and vulgar advertisements can be reported to the commission, the report said.
”Tightening supervision and self-regulation of the media industry is part of the central government’s efforts [to push forward the] rule of law and fight corruption … and to build a good media image to the public,” Zhai Huisheng, the Communist Party secretary of the China Journalists’ Association was quoted as saying during its first meeting yesterday, the Times reported.
The commission has also set up a hotline to receive tips on any media malpractices.
The decision to set up the commission was announced days after editor-in-chief and employees of 21cbh.com, a leading financial news portal, as well as executives of two public relations firms appeared on state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV), confessing to extorting hundreds of thousands of yuan from companies planning stock market listings.
READ MORE: Detained Shanghai editor admits to news site's bribery-extortion scheme
Eight people, including 21cbh.com’s editor-in-chief, were detained by police two weeks ago.
CCTV itself has been hit by a graft scandal. Several employees, including an executive and presenter from CCTV’s financial channel, have been taken away by anti-graft investigators since June.
These recent cases have raised heated debate over the prevalence of corruption in media on the mainland, where political news is tightly censored but financial news – which may be prone to graft – is given relatively more latitude.
