I just went through today's Huff Post, there is a report let me laugh.
"China Forcing New York Times Reporter To Leave Country".This is not just simple as the title.
The protagonist Austin Ramzy, is a well known reporter, who has been a Beijing correspondent since 2007.The reason Austin got deported, is he's still using a Visa which already can't represent his current identity. He didn't ask for another application either. Austin has less than 1 week to leave China.
There are kinds of response to this decision. "His actions were in contravention of China's rules," Qin Gang, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry,said. Philanthropist and entrepreneur Guangbiao Chen "jokes" to a mainstream media, he said he would like to acquisition The New Yorks Time. He states that the purpose of the acquisition is to increase the objectivety and realism, rebuild its credibility and influence in China.
About one week ago, The New York Times announced to hire Michele Forsythe, who has been published numbers of truth disclosure articles on social media outlets. He has reported a variations of corrupt government officer and secret government issues whether on Bloomberg or his own blog. For the purpose of revenge, China government forced The New York Time deport one of their employee. This is an unspeakable truth. "Red" is always the hidden code when we trying to decoding how an international retaliation move happened.
Summer 2012, Bloomberg posted an article about Xi Jinping's family wealth, then their selling are slow-down, state authority units are not allow to subscribe. Among with these, Bloomberg's server was blocked by China's government. The internet censorship is an important bureau which require sensitive news goes in, neutral news come out. Sometimes they need to serve different scenarios to the public if they are not strong enough to contradict the officials.
We communicate with specific public, Nilanjana and Bardham state in their "Culture as a Travelling Variable in Transnational Public Relations". In a specific country like China, politics is always the key to solving problems,otherwise tangling them. Although any public relations strategies involving media need to reflect and reinforce the power (Freitag), we as a common people, are still looking for democracy and free speech. As a PR, avoiding contradict like this and being respectful may has a better outcome.
This is interesting. As a journalist, and even as a PR professional, you must take into consideration the political and social environment in which you are working. The article details the ways in which China censors news media, by blocking websites and roughing up journalists that don’t play by their rules. We are accustomed to a Western approach to media, very direct and confrontational, perhaps journalists and PR professionals can learn from this incident in China to better frame messages and stories for double duty.
ReplyDeleteIf you are working in a high-context culture, such as China, it may be more effective to “play by their rules” and take a more subtle approach to reporting or messaging, you may be able to get your point across while still being able to “play the game” and expose certain issues.
However, that being said, there is the issue of “journalistic excellence” and, in terms of ethics, how far do you bend your own approach to an issue in order to accommodate the cultural norms of others?