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FCCC statement on harassment of BBC journalists in Hunan province

The following is a statement issued by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China for its members.

FCCC statement on harassment of BBC journalists in Hunan province

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China condemns the harassment of and violence against a team of BBC journalists in Hunan province this week in an attempt to prevent them from reporting the story of a Chinese petitioner who was attempting to travel to Beijing to protest, ahead of the start of the National People’s Congress on Sunday.

Despite having the interviewee’s prior consent, BBC correspondent John Sudworth and his team were prevented from meeting her by a group of men who refused to identify themselves. The BBC journalists were assaulted and had their camera equipment broken.

Later, in the presence of uniformed police officers and government officials, the same men forced the BBC team to sign a written confession and apology, under the threat of further violence.

This violent effort to deter news coverage is a gross violation of Chinese government rules governing foreign correspondents, which expressly permit them to interview anybody who consents to be interviewed.

The FCCC is also alarmed that the BBC journalists were forced to sign a “confession” simply for carrying out their professional duties according to Chinese law.

The FCCC calls on the Chinese government and police to take steps to prevent foreign reporters who are legally allowed to work in China from being subjected to such violence and intimidation.

Journalists in China have reported increasing harassment by authorities. The 2016 FCCC survey of working conditions for correspondents, released last November, found increased use of force and manhandling by authorities against journalists performing their work. Some correspondents have also been called in to unspecified meetings with the State Security Bureau.

Fully 98% of the survey’s respondents said reporting conditions rarely meet international standards, while 29% said conditions had deteriorated.

Harassment, detention and questioning of sources remains worryingly common. 57% of correspondents said they personally had been subjected to some form of interference, harassment or violence while attempting to report in China.

Me and the Media: Writer and editor Alex Frew McMillan

Journalist and editor Alex Frew McMillan. Photo CC Kei. Journalist and editor Alex Frew McMillan. Photo CC Kei.

Alex Frew McMillan is a feature writer and editor, the last 13 years specialising in real-estate coverage and business reporting.

Previously: CNN, as a business reporter, and Reuters, as the Asia real-estate correspondent.

Now: Regular contributor to TheStreet.com, and is also the Asia editor of Modus, the magazine of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. As a free-lancer, he has written for The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Forbes, the Economist Intelligence Unit and CNBC.

What made you want to work in the media?

I didn’t want to work in the media at all. I want(ed) to be a novelist! But I have one problem, in that I never write any fiction at all. I have finally accepted that I am a non-fiction writer.

I love the news. I have always had a great and broad general interest. I find many topics interesting and love exploring ideas. And I am not great with routine – I love that news is always different, always changing. Most of all, though, I love taking complex topics and breaking them down in ways that are (with any luck) interesting, understandable and entertaining.

Being a freelancer is hard, and unstable. But I hate working in someone else’s office. I feel I am wasting my life away that way.

What has been a career high point?

Alex Frew McMillan. Alex Frew McMillan.

That is difficult to say. To be honest, the high points are whenever a reader approaches me and asks me a question about a story. I always say that a writer only needs one reader.

There is one strange thing about writing for me. Whenever I finish and file a story, I am sick of it and don’t think it’s any good. Then, later, when I come across an old piece, I realise it’s actually pretty well-written.

And a career low point?

There are so many! I would say that I did not make the most of my time at Reuters. I thought that the job was telling me what to do. I didn’t realise that I needed to tell the job what I wanted to do, and do it.

What career advice would you give to your younger self?

Don’t be afraid to take risks. In fact, seek them out. If there’s a question that you are afraid to ask, that is exactly the question you have to ask. And of course, spell everyone’s name right.

World Press Freedom Day

FCC and HKJA statement on escalating violence and threats against Sing Pao Daily and its staff

Sing Pao Daily's website Sing Pao Daily’s website

The Hong Kong Journalists Association and the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Hong Kong strongly condemn the escalating violence and threats against Sing Pao Daily and its staff.

The campaign of terror, which has been going on for more than a week, is on the surface an outrageous attempt to silence the paper.

One of its senior editors had his house door smeared with red paint yesterday. This followed the shadowing of its senior staff; posting of threatening posters outside an employee’s home; flooding of hate phone calls and emails to its editorial team and attack on its website which is now down.

It is unthinkable that these incidents are happening despite three earlier reports made to the police by the newspaper’s management.

This is an outright challenge to law and order in Hong Kong as well as a threat to press freedom which is enshrined in the Basic Law.

The Association calls on the government and the police to step up efforts to protect the newspaper’s staff and to bring the culprit(s) to justice

Me and the Media: Former Reuters chief David Schlesinger

David Schlesinger when he was Reuters' editor-in-chief. Photo: David Schlesinger David Schlesinger when he was Reuters’ editor-in-chief. Photo: David Schlesinger

David Schlesinger is the founder of Tripod Advisors

Previously: Journalist with Reuters for 25 years, rising to Editor-in-Chief and then Chairman, Thomas Reuters China

Now: Writer and consultant, still active in journalism and the media business

What made you want to work in media?

I needed to support my China habit! And while I dabbled in academia, one wise professor in graduate school pointed out that I liked closure – that feeling of finding something out, making a judgment and moving on (and of course academic work moves at a comparatively glacial pace!). So I became a news service journalist, trying on a minute-by-minute basis to make a sensible narrative out of the world’s chaos. 

What has been a career high point?

An early highlight was being named Reuters China bureau chief — my academic interests and my new profession came together in an exciting and stimulating way. Then, when I became global Editor-in-Chief, it was an extraordinary high to lead an organisation of truly talented and brave people through difficult and challenging times.

And a career low point?

David Schlesinger during his tenure as China bureau chief for Reuters. Photo: David Schlesinger David Schlesinger during his tenure as China bureau chief for Reuters. Photo: David Schlesinger

My time in senior editorial roles coincided with an extremely bloody, deadly and terrifying time for journalism. Too many Reuters journalists died in Iraq, in Israel, in Thailand when I was responsible for the operation – their deaths were far too high a price to pay. The struggle to balance our need as reporters to bear witness and our vital need to stay safe is one we as a profession still haven’t solved.

What career advice would you give to your younger self?

You never can stop pushing – making that extra call, revising that one more time, asking that follow up question. I think that’s the kind of spirit that will survive all the technological and business challenges facing the profession and will always find a reward.

FCCT statement on the criminal prosecution of BBC Southeast Asia correspondent Jonathan Head

The following is a statement issued by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand for its members.

FCCT statement on the criminal prosecution of BBC Southeast Asia
correspondent Jonathan Head

 

Due to laws in Thailand relating to contempt of court, the professional membership of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club is constrained in what can be said concerning criminal charges for defamation brought against BBC correspondent Jonathan Head, which are being tested in a Thai court at taxpayer’s expense.

This is an important case that merits the broadest attention. It tests the legal limits of how much a journalist can report in what he/she genuinely believes to be the public interest without fear of legal redress.

Of broader significance, it shines a light on how notarized signatures are sometimes used in Thailand on important documents, such as title deeds, shares, wills, company directorships, and so forth. This is therefore a case of considerable concern to everybody living in the country, not just foreign residents and investors.

We hope that this matter can be brought to a quick, unambiguous, and just conclusion for the benefit of all concerned.

It should be noted that Jonathan Head serves as chairman of the professional committee of the FCCT, and has recused himself from this statement.

Trump and China: OPC group discusses relationship that’s ‘simply too important’ to fail

This article by Eric Westervelt is reproduced with permission from the Overseas Press Club of America 

Left to right: Xiao Qiang, John Pomfret and Mary Kay Magistad. Photo: Eric Westervelt Left to right: Xiao Qiang, John Pomfret and Mary Kay Magistad. Photo: Eric Westervelt

Despite Donald Trump’s tough talk about China, author and journalist John Pomfret told an OPC/West gathering in the San Francisco area in early January that history shows that the relationship is deep, complex, and “simply too important” to fail.

Pomfret’s new book, The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present, charts the history of that relationship, and how, from the American Founding Fathers to the present, each country has influenced the other in abiding and often surprising ways, including how the Founding Fathers studied and admired aspects of Chinese culture, and how trade with China just after the birth of the American nation helped the US economy get going.

Donald Trump’s apparent preference for closer ties with Russia may over time prove to be a new twist on an old theme – US presidents coming in with one set of assumptions about China, and adjusting them upon realising how a constructive, multi-faceted relationship with China serves US interests. An added challenge this time is how to deal with China’s efforts to cement its desired role as the region’s predominant military, economic and political power, including by creating islands and putting military bases in the contested South China Sea.

Joining the conversation was Xiao Qiang, an adjunct professor in UC Berkeley’s School of Information, and founder and editor-in-chief of China Digital Times.net, which monitors and translates Chinese journalism and social media. He said while many Chinese on social media initially expressed a preference that Trump would win the election, because they figured a businessman would be all about transactional business and not about ideology, the post-election tone has become more uncertain.

“Right now, I see confusion and silence,” said Xiao Qiang, “There is uncertainty…people just don’t know what to do.”

John Pomfret's book, The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present John Pomfret’s book, The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present

Xiao Qiang grew up in China and, like Pomfret, was in Tiananmen Square during the 1989 pro-democracy protests, Pomfret as a correspondent, Xiao as a protester. Shortly after, Pomfret was kicked out of the country, and Xiao went into exile in the United States, first helping to lead the human rights group Human Rights in China, and then founding China Digital Times.

Xiao recalled how, growing up under Mao Zedong’s leadership, during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and ‘70s, he heard plenty of anti-American propaganda, but as soon as China started opening up, American films, music and culture poured in, and his generation – like the pre-Mao generation – couldn’t get enough of them. America was initially idealised and emulated, both at the personal and the official levels – as China rose as a global power and global economy, America set the standard, but was also increasingly – and is still – seen as the competitor to beat.

How that will play out between President Trump and current Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has shown a willingness to be muscular in consolidating power at home and claiming territory in contested waters, will be a critical variable in determining the stability, or lack thereof, in the Asia/Pacific region, and whether the United States might get pulled into a conflict there – or choose to cooperate on an issue like halting North Korea’s progress on building up its nuclear weapons capabilities.

The conversation was moderated by OPC member Mary Kay Magistad, who opened NPR’s bureau in China in 1996, and returned to Beijing for more than a decade for the BBC/PRI program “The World.” She now hosts the “Whose Century Is It?” podcast with The World.

The Center for Investigative Reporting/Reveal hosted the event, attended by more than 30 former foreign correspondents, at its Emeryville headquarters, just across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco.

Overseas Press Club of America logo

OPC/West is an informal affiliate of the OPC. The group of about 70 current and former foreign correspondents based in the San Francisco Bay Area, first formed in the spring of 2016. New members are welcome. Interested? Contact OPC members Markos Kounalakis at [email protected], or Mary Kay Magistad at [email protected].

Eric Westervelt served for more that a decade as foreign correspondent with NPR’s international desk, returning to domestic news in 2013 to cover a national beat covering American education.

Me and the Media: Ex-BBC News producer Nigel Sharman on his career highs and lows

Nigel Sharman is an FCC associate member governor. Nigel Sharman is an FCC associate member governor.

Nigel Sharman is an FCC associate member governor

Previously: Senior Producer, BBC News, London

Now: Solicitor, Clifford Chance, Hong Kong

What made you want to work in media?

My uncle Berkeley Smith used to run the old Southern Television ITV franchise famous for its Out of Town countryside programme, the precursor to Countryfile. I remember being given a tour of the Southampton studios when I was young and marvelled at the studio in which How! was made. I made it as a BBC television production trainee at the second attempt and worked on programmes such as Breakfast Time, That’s Life (with Esther, Cyril and the amusingly-shaped vegetables) and Newsnight.

What has been a career high point?

Working day-in, day-out with some truly talented and remarkable people, including presenters Martyn Lewis, Peter Sissons and Anna Ford. And, during a short sojourn at ITN, with the wonderful Sir Trevor McDonald, whose overall niceness I remember to this day.

And a career low point?

Berkeley Smith covering the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Photo: BBC Berkeley Smith covering the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Photo: BBC

Being shouted at by an irate John Prescott in the Norman Shaw North Parliamentary studio after Jeremy Paxman asked him, down the line from the studio, questions he didn’t want to be asked. Prescott later made out I had given him an assurance to that effect. I had done no such thing, which taught me a lot about politicians!

What career advice would you give to your younger self?

Keep asking yourself if you are enjoying what you are doing and if you aren’t, do something else. Don’t stay in jobs that don’t make you happy.

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