The New Year's Day of 2007 saw only a few foreign journalists in
Tian'anmen Square, a place where many of them used to interview
Chinese on wishes for the coming year.
Some journalists chose to travel to other parts of China for
more important news, thanks to China's new regulations granting
foreign journalists more freedom that came into effect on
Monday.
Reuters datelined a story "HOHHOT" on Monday, becoming the first
foreign media to report in other Chinese cities besides Beijing and
Shanghai without application to authorities.
The Reuters report said "foreign journalists had needed
government permission to report outside their home base -- usually
Beijing or Shanghai -- but under the new rules, which came into
force on Monday, they need only the agreement of the person they
are interviewing."
To interview organizations or individuals in China, foreign
journalists need only to obtain their consent, according to the
"Regulations on Reporting Activities in China by Foreign
Journalists during the Beijing Olympic Games and the Preparatory
Period."
The new regulations also allow foreign journalists to hire
Chinese citizens through organizations providing services to
foreign nationals to assist them in their reporting activities,
while relaxing other restrictions.
Observers agree that foreign journalists now enjoy more freedom
in reporting on China.
Foreign media reacted instantly to the new regulations. The
National Broadcasting Co. (NBC) of the United States decided to
send journalists to China; The Associated Press planned to hire
Chinese to enhance its China reports; The number of New York Times
journalists in China rose to five, making its Chinese office the
biggest one in Asia.
Benjamin Lim with Reuters, who has been in China for ten years,
told Xinhua that he interviewed a person on Monday without the
application process as before, which he said was really a step
forward.
Lim had wanted to interview the person and applied in 2004.
However, the interview was not conducted until Monday due to
complicated application process.
At the end of December 2006, there were 606 resident journalists
from 319 foreign news organizations of 49 countries in China. They
were usually based in Beijing and Shanghai, according to statistics
from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
About 3,000 to 5,000 foreign journalists came to China annually
in recent years for short-term assignments.
The effect of the new foreign media regulations are yet to be
clear and some journalists are testing.
Benjamin Lim said some of his friends chose to report on village
democracy and other topics in three cities after the foreign media
regulations became effective. He was not clear about the
development of their job.
However, one journalist was banned from an interview in an east
China city by local officials who said, "Sorry we do not know about
the regulations at the moment."
Ben Blanchard, writer of the Reuters story datelined "HOHHOT" on
Monday, met no trouble in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. He said
he would continue to work there until Wednesday.
Reuters is not the only foreign media that plans to conduct
interviews in other parts of China besides Beijing and Shanghai.
Takanori Kato, Shanghai bureau chief of Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun,
said although Beijing and Shanghai are political and economical
hubs of China, interviews in other places are still needed to know
a whole China.
In the past, he had to do interviews by telephone when something
happened outside Beijing and Shanghai as it would have taken at
least several days to get official approval to go there.
The new regulations will enable Takanori Kato to travel
instantly for news, and "allow the world know quickly what is
happening in China," the Japanese journalist said.
Zhang Yongheng, a journalist with the Chinese newspaper People's
Daily, said he could feel the pressure and competition since he
would see foreign counterparts on the occasions that used to be
witnessed only by Chinese journalists before the new foreign media
regulations.
China has grown to be the world's fourth largest economy and
foreign coverage of China has risen sharply in 2006, said China's
top publicity official Cai Wu. The coverage by certain media jumped
by 30 percent or 40 percent.
Liu Jianchao, director of the Information Department of Chinese
Foreign Ministry, said foreign journalists would enjoy more and
more freedom in China, as well as better and better working
environment.
(Xinhua News Agency January 2, 2007)