MediaChannel: Why Is A Us Media Company Fronting For China?

Hong Kong was being turned into an armed camp this week, as a small security army mobilized to protect a business forum mounted by FORTUNE Magazine, a division of AOL Time Warner.

A media enterprise is now not just reporting news but making it, with a conference aimed at facilitating foreign investment in China. Is it appropriate for a company whose executives pledge allegiance to the tenets of freedom of expression to be staging an event at which a world-class human rights abuser is given a platform while protests by his critics are walled off from the media and political heavies who have been invited?

Fortune's decision to welcome Chinese President Jiang Zemin, who only last week topped the Committee to Protect Journalists list of the biggest enemies of press freedom, is bad enough. But their Forum will also test freedom in Hong Kong itself as Beijing seeks to force the local government there to outlaw the spiritual practice of Falun Gong, and by so doing, undermine the "one country, two systems" formula that China agreed to when Hong Kong was returned to the homeland. Also, as the Associated Press reports, local critics "say Hong Kong is planning security overkill that could tarnish its international reputation."

FORTUNE's lack of audible protest against the repressive environment that its commercial undertaking created worries media observers too because it signals that many media oligopolies put their business interests in China ahead of their commitment to aggressive reporting on abuses there.

Falun Gong was turned down in a bid to speak at the Forum. So much for that journalistic credo about hearing both sides of the story. A Fortune editor told them not to worry because Human Rights Watch will have a representative on hand. But that's not responsive because China is not jailing and torturing Human Rights Watch members. Jiang Zemin's obsession is Falun Gong. So why not let them speak for themselves? They also asked the big wigs there to help facilitate a dialogue between them and China. Fortune evaded their request as it kowtowed to Beijing.

The last Fortune sponsored event in that part of the world met in Shanghai on September 28, 1999, and was also keynoted by Jiang Zemin. US Media mogul Sumner Redstone, who had just merged the giant Viacom corporation with CBS, called for American press restraint in the coverage of China to the delight of the gerontocracy that rules China.. The media, he said, should report the truth but avoid being "unnecessarily offensive" to foreign governments. "As they expand their global reach, media companies must be aware of the politics and attitudes of the governments where we operate. Journalistic integrity must prevail in the final analysis. But that doesn't mean that journalistic integrity should be exercised in a way that is unnecessarily offensive to the countries in which you operate," he said.

Remarks like this by leaders of the American media industry set the tone for news coverage. Redstone was predictably silent on human rights abuses in China. Earlier, human rights advocates had urged business leaders at the Fortune conference to speak out on the issue. Falun Gong's practitioners were then in prison, but their plight was not discussed or reported upon at this media organized event. Ironically, the Chinese then censored a Time Magazine special on China, As one news report explained, "the edition, whose masthead was emblazoned with the headline "China's Amazing Half-Century," fell foul of Chinese censors by including articles written by exiled dissidents Wei Jingsheng and Wang Dan, and the Tibetan Dalai Lama.

What was Time Warner's response? It made a mild criticism and then-- invited Jiang back.

Since then, James Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch's son, and head of STAR TV in Hong Kong denounced Falun Gong and called on human rights activists there to back down. Years earlier his father removed BBC coverage from his satellite after the regime objected to its human rights reports.

Two many media companies who covet the Chinese market are letting their business interests guide them. Some US software firms reportedly helped the Chinese build filters to censor the Internet. One exception, ironically, is a business newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, which won a Pulitzer for Beijing correspondent Ian Johnson's reporting on Falun Gong. Not surprisingly, few TV outlets picked up his stories to give them more bounce. Most Americans still don't know much about Falun Gong.

Fortune Magazine and other media outlets should speak up for the rights of people to protest peacefully in Hong Kong and not allow themselves be used as tool for an ominous and impending confrontation and worse.

http://www.mediachannel.org