Despite the oppressive restrictions on free speech in China, which has resulted in high-profile imprisonment of journalists and online writers, government officials are increasingly at a loss to stop bloggers from disseminating unsanctioned information. As a consequence, Chinese bloggers are getting bolder, but not necessarily in the way you might expect.
According to this Reuters piece, some bloggers are starting to see bucks in their online posts, but extortion or blackmail, and not traditional advertising, seem to be the basis of the business model. Although many citizen journalists continue to toil without compensation to uncover unpleasant facts of life in China, some blogging opportunists are demanding hush money from government officials and local businesses in exchange for their silence.
In January, one writer for a Beijing-based newspaper was even reportedly beaten to death for seeking payoffs for not reporting problems at an unlicensed coal mine.
In a strange way it's kind of encouraging to see a nascent form of capitalist-like support for free speech in China, even if it's all backwards. The opportunistic bloggers are merely introducing an extreme and dark form of advertising support, going soft on newsworthy subjects in exchange for their money.
Without the deeply entrenched tradition of a "Chinese wall" (ed. note: couldn't help myself) that more or less separates money from editorial coverage in most Western publications, Chinese bloggers, or so it seems, are planting the early seeds of independent journalism in China.
Cynthia Brumfield at 7:19 AM|Comments(0)
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