Posted on 06/26/2002 11:38:04 PM PDT by maui_hawaii
The rim editor comes to me late one evening with a problem. Hundreds are dead and thousands are homeless in flooding that has ravaged several southern regions in recent weeks. Seemed pretty dire, so I wrote a headline that indicated that the nation had been ravaged by storms. And that's the problem.
"The boss says this is too negative," the editor tells me. "Please soften it."
"Too negative?" I ask with bulging eyes. "How can it be too negative? Hundreds of people are dead. What's soft about that?"
"Eh," the editor sniffs. "This is a country of 1.3 billion people. A few hundred people really isn't the whole nation."
So began my tenure as a copy "polisher" at China's only English-language national newspaper, the China Daily. I was a Medill School of Journalism-educated reporter with clips in some of my nation's largest newspapers, yet I'd grown bored with local journalism and yearning for adventure when I spotted that E&P ad beckoning Westerners to come to China and edit for a year.
They promised to fly me over and back, put me up, give me a month's vacation, and pay me four times the average Beijing wage. For all this, I promised to make the English writing of the Chinese staff as readable as possible -- and ignore how ridiculous, inept, and often outrageously false the substance is.
But, of course, ignoring that was impossible, since it was easily the most fascinating part of the job. Lots of Westerners come to China, most to teach English or open a new franchise. Not many get invited into the foyer of the inner sanctum of the greatest totalitarian dictatorship to ever masquerade as a respectable government. We weren't quite in there with the Politburo, but we were probably closer than any other Western could get.
Never mind that the staff of a dozen polishers that I joined aid and abet in that charade by improving the text of this rag to a point where it occasionally sounds authoritative. We knew the Western readers -- mainly the foreign press -- didn't view China Daily as a newspaper so much as a news source that provided insight into where the Chinese government stands. American journalists quote from the China Daily every day because direct comment from actual government officials is often impossible to come by, so I saw phrases I rewrote popping up in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.
As paid employees of the Chinese Ministry of Information, we learned by heart the party line on certain hot topics. The world has but "one China, and Taiwan Province is an inalienable part of that one China." In 1951, China effected the "peaceful liberation of Tibet." And the Falun Gong ( news - web sites) is "an evil, nefarious cult whose brainwashed members turn into insane, homicidal, and suicidal maniacs."
OK, that last one was overdoing it a bit -- we polishers often pumped in a bit of free-lance excess to show the Western reader that somebody on this side knew this stuff is absurd.
This was "journalism" that would make every Medill professor ill. The sanctity of direct quotes? None. They changed them regularly, even in wire copy, and not just because the translations from Chinese required finesse.
Sometimes, they invented people, too. Would anybody really believe, for instance, that a family forced to move from a downtown Beijing home their ancestors built centuries ago to a remote suburb is so patriotic as to accept with glee this relocation as their contribution to making way for the structures that will help China host a great Olympics? The China Daily said so.
Statistics, too, were laughably employed. One piece claimed a poll of 354,000 people found 99% said they would buy organic foods even if they cost more. I wrote a query into the text, noting that it would be virtually impossible to get 99% of any group of people to agree on much of anything. The reporter's reply: "But the statistic is most assuredly true. The commission would have no reason to lie."
The editorial page was particularly entertaining. One day, this newspaper -- representing a regime that mowed down a thousand or more in Tiananmen Square and then insisted it never happened -- concluded, in reference to Japan, that "a nation that lies about its history cannot be trusted by the rest of the world." This was actually in print.
How did we stomach it? It wasn't always easy, particularly when the U.S. spy-plane crew was held on Hainan and the rhetoric wandered into a less-cartoonish viciousness. Yet, even in those moments, we gained insight into the Chinese political and cultural mind that few, including those at the U.S. Embassy, can access. And I helped Chinese staffers apply to U.S. j-schools, spreading the subversive gospel of the First Amendment. In a land where free expression is considered a threat to social stability, maybe that's the best you can do.
--Steve Friess is a free-lancer based in Las Vegas. He wrote frequently (and illegally) for USA Today from China last year.
To be honest, it may not happen in the US but it definitely could happen in China. Chinese follow "trend" or "tide". You don't want to be in minority in China in terms of political positons or social behaviors. Otherwise your life could be miserable.
BTW, this is a great article, thanks for posting it.
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