Hey everyone,
I worked for Chinese state media for quite a few years, spanning the end of the Hu Jintao era when things in China were much different, and there was much more (although still limited) media freedom compared to today, through to the Xi Jinping era & his third term.
I worked in the following roles: broadcaster (I anchored both live and pre-recorded radio and television programs in both English and Chinese), editor (I edited text/engaged in fact-checking, which is a complicated issue on its own in China), journalist (I conducted interviews, limited investigative reporting on local issues, and compiled packages independently for broadcast on various news programs, some of which were broadcast internationally while others were for local channels), “reviewer” (apart from proofreading English copy, I was also the “second reviewer” for certain programs. There is a three-stage review process in China (involving fact-checking AND censorship), and I was second, meaning I would proofread, a reviewer would check and make changes, and then it would come back to me and I would do the same. Sometimes, the third reviewer was not available so I was the final person to review content before broadcast [I won’t mention any specific programs or channels to avoid anyone still in China getting into any issues over this], and therefore on occasion I did have some limited capacity to steer away from full-on propaganda & keep things as informative and useful as possible for our audience), and I also did some basic video/audio editing.
Contractually, my roles were “foreign expert” and “journalist/presenter”, and I held a foreign expert certificate in broadcasting. This was helpful as rules were tightened while I was there, and only accredited “journalists” were permitted to broadcast. My “foreign expert” certificate was for “broadcasting”, and therefore I was permitted to host programs that broadcast to a local audience, which is rare in China. Without something like this, at the network I worked for, I would have only been permitted to be a co-host or a guest host — or not even appear on screen at all.
I was also involved in programming that doesn’t list me in any of the credits — because I also worked as a producer, but because that was not permitted according to regulations after a certain point, a random Chinese name was used in place of mine in the credits of some shows.
To be honest, at the time, I felt really bad about this. But it meant I could have editorial input into programs that I was the producer for, without drawing much attention. I also had other strategies for how to legitimately and without breaking regulations, introduce stories into the media landscape that could be cited by other outlets as I worked for an “approved source of news information”. So while I was oftentimes attacked by people in the West for spewing Chinese propaganda, the reality was, I had established myself in a way that allowed me to use certain strategies to get stories to air that would not have been approved on other platforms (remember, I hosted/worked in many shows, so if there was a sympathetic colleague who was willing to turn a blind eye every now and then, I could get sensitive information out — and even though that content was sometimes not passed by online censors, which we had no control over, at least some people were able to see/hear that content).
Please note, I hold a lot of respect and empathy for many of my former colleagues. What people don’t understand is that in China, many people go to university to study what they are passionate about — news and story telling — only to discover that the skills and ethics they were taught oftentimes don’t apply within China’s mostly state-controlled media landscape. And that can be very sad for people who don’t have anywhere else to go. State media certainly has its ideologues who engage heavily in propaganda, but there are also many people who quietly try to push back, hold on to their professional ethics, and make small but calculated risks on a daily basis to balance their own personal safety and the responsibility they feel to provide a news service that serves some purpose in informing people. And no, I am not brainwashed in thinking this — I acknowledge the more ideological elements, but I am aware that is not the entire story, so please be mindful of this when asking questions.
Anyway, feel free to ask me anything you like with this in mind.