Liying Qian

I was an intern with Bloomberg Businessweek’s China bureau in Beijing in the summer of 2014. The bureau issues a bi-weekly Chinese edition of Bloomberg Businessweek magazine featuring Chinese business and financial market. This edition is a result of the partnership between Bloomberg Businessweek and Modern Media Holdings Limited, one of the leading media companies in China.

 

I worked with the team that covered government and public policy. First day at work, I was sent to interview a Chinese central government official who was the keynote speaker at a national technology competition’s awards party. When I arrived at the entrance for the media, I, along with reporters from other media, was called to a car. A lady from the government’s department of propaganda handed each of us a press kit with a brown envelope that said, “transportation reimbursement.” The envelope contained 1,000 RMB, which equals about $150. It is almost a third of an entry-level reporter’s monthly salary in Beijing.

 

I immediately found myself in an ethic dilemma. Should I accept the money? As a reporter, accepting money from the party I report on is against journalistic integrity, at least against what I have been taught at the Missouri School of Journalism. If I do, am I able to report without becoming the party’s mouthpiece? Will I still be qualified to cover that event? However, if I return it, the magazine can lose a very important connection. In China, there was an unstated but understood policy that reporters who don’t accept the money are not given credentials. So, there I was - first day at work, alone and confused.

 

Eventually, I decided to play safe by doing what other reporters did. I took the money and stayed silent. “This is an expedient,” I comforted myself. “I will deal with it later.”

 

I spent the next five hours at the event feeling guilty.

 

The next day, I handed the money envelope over to the chief editor of the Bloomberg Businessweek bureau and told her what happened. She said she would deal with it and asked me not to worry about it. I later talked to a couple of fellow reporters in private about the incident and asked where the money would go afterwards. “This is normal,” they said. “They company will handle it. No worries.”

 

I thought about the incident many times that summer. My colleagues’ silence and avoidance puzzled me. Media in China was and still is in a very paradoxical situation where it claims to be independent but doesn’t act that way. The incident is a good example of the notorious “envelope journalism” practice, which is prevalent in Asia, especially Philippines, China, Korea, India and Indonesia. “Envelope journalism” is a colloquial term for the practice of bribing journalists for favorable media coverage. It’s usually given in the name of tokens of appreciation for attending a press conference, according to Wikipedia.

                                   

According to a New York Times article, the practice embodies the rapidly changing nature of the Chinese economy and media landscape. Due to economic decentralization and ineffective tax law in the early 1990s, the Communist Party could no longer afford to run news outlets the way it used to. As a result, Chinese reporters and editors lost their “iron rice bowl,” a Chinese term used to refer to an occupation with guaranteed job security, as well as steady income and benefits.

 

“The asymmetry of liberalization – economic but not ideological – has rendered traditional journalists, whose poor pay has earned them the moniker ‘news laborers,’ more susceptible to bribery,” author Jiayang Fan says in the article. “This has been an open secret, which almost no media outlets have dared to talk about as a cultural phenomenon.”

 

In the hindsight, I am still not sure what stopped my colleagues from sharing their true feelings, but I sensed an underlying uneasiness. I still feel unsettled about the solution. How did the editor deal with the money anyways? Whose pocket did it fall into? I wish I pressed more for the answers.

 

One thing I learned from the experience is that context matters. For instance, the rampant “envelope journalism” practice wouldn’t be equally tolerated if it occurred in the U.S. Chances are the media would be heavily criticized and pressured to reform. Unlike China, the U.S. has a much more vibrant and better-established media system, which includes a set of rigorous ethical standards. Bob Steele, a Nelson Poynter scholar for journalism values, has identified independence, truth telling and harm minimalizing as the triumvirate of professional values in American journalism. According to a Chinese media ethics guideline issued by the Chinese central government in 2009, similar values such as the quest for truth and objectivity, the compulsion for free expression and the desire for responsibility are identified. It is in the interpretation and application of the values where a richer context can be implied.

 

The questions are: Are there professional journalistic values that cut across international and cultural boundaries? If each country can claim the same values in name, but interpret and execute them differently, how can reporters do their job on a foreign land?

 

Some foreign media companies in China have tried to establish professional standards, swearing off “envelope journalism.” For instance, Forbes China, the magazine’s licensed Chinese-language edition, forbids such gifts “even in the form of transportation fees.” But how easy the enforcement can be? Big American publications such as Bloomberg Businessweek are often forced to play by Chinese rules, because their access to newsmakers and news events are often restricted by the Chinese journalistic practice and values.

 

As a Chinese-born and American-educated journalist, I often find myself torn between two value systems. Many ethics’ rules I was taught in the West seem not applicable in Chinese culture. In a case like that, I will always struggle between obeying the principles I am taught as true and succumbing to the widely accepted rules in another culture. This struggle motivates me to better understand a culture I report on and put situations in the context. It also reminds me of how important it is to work in an environment that respects real editorial independence. Don’t take freedom for granted.

 

Another thing I learned is that independent media system is a joint effort of an open government, a supportive society and a robust economic environment. This dilemma can’t be completely resolved in just a few years. The solution can’t be elaborated in just a few words. But at least, what Chinese news outlets can do is to be more transparent about what they do and how they do it. If they need to take the money, they should set a ceiling and create a policy on how the money is going to be used. The public should have the right to know and be engaged in the news reporting process. In the U.S., I have seen many journalists involve readers in their reporting process through social media. In comparison, many Chinese journalists I know don’t even have an active social media presence. If Chinese journalists can’t change the practice, they at least should not hide it from readers. I believe truly public-minded journalists will always think about their audience while doing their job. “Envelope journalism” won’t disappear overnight, but it’s time for it to come out of the closet.

​

 

​