PressEthic

There is a saying in China, “Kill the chicken to scare the monkey.” With the Chinese government practicing terror tactics to keep foreign journalists out, it’s particularly apt. Instead of doing what oppressive regimes normally do, and killing or barring foreign journalists from the country, the Chinese government has come up with a new strategy – go after the local Chinese that help them out, guide them, and translate for them.

Foreign correspondents depend on local helpers no matter what country they go to. Guides, translators and facilitators are almost always used and needed. Without them, foreign journalism would be increasingly difficult – possibly limited to people from that country.

In the past, journalists have been intimidated, beaten, arrested, imprisoned, and killed. But when you’re responsible for the life and well-being of someone who’s helping you do your job, it’s a whole other story. How do you justify endangering someone else to get a story?

It seems the Chinese government has hit on a working strategy. Not only are they not laying a finger on the foreign journalists – a move that almost always brings condemnation from around the world – but if anyone complains about their tactics, they can just say they are policing their own citizens and enforcing their own laws. It might be very hard to prove otherwise. A good example of this is New York Times correspondent Zhao Yang who was arrested for “revealing state secrets.” You have to give them credit for being effective. I know I’d think twice about going after a story if other people’s lives hung in the balance. It’s once thing to put your own life at risk, and another thing to set someone else up for a vicious beating.

Another “bonus” feature is that Chinese people who witness or hear about the incidents are blaming the foreign journalists for putting the guides in these situations. How can the journalists claim they care about what happens to the people who help them if they continue to put them in the same type of situation, and then go and write a story about it? It also helps that most people are probably too afraid of the government to blame it, and so probably take all their anger out on the journalists.

I don’t know what I’d do if I were a journalist in this situation. It’s definitely a more effective strategy than directly trying to oppress the journalists themselves. Threatening someone tends to make them want to rebel against you all the more – but go after someone else, and people tend to have second thoughts about their actions.

What would you do?