Plenary: Moral Maze - Witness: Bei Jiao (Fellow, China)

20 Sep 2013

Proposition: "Journalism coarsens, simplifies and distorts politics (and the new media won't be any better)"

Bei Jiao is a reporter for the South China Morning Post. She does not believe that the proposition holds true for traditional media in China because newspapers are state controlled and are moderated by propaganda authorities. However, she does concede that in the past few years, new media has strengthened as investigative journalists and the general public have utilised unregulated platforms, such as microblogs and Weibo, to discuss politically sensitive issues. Authorities have woken up to such liberal outlets and have begun to tighten regulations on new media, significantly reducing the number of investigative journalists from 300 to less the 100 within the last five years.