Ways That Are Dark

The Guardian reports in All news must be good news, says Chinese government that local media have been ordered to only report positive news stories in the build up to October’s 17th party congress. That means coverage of ongoing food and safety scandals, including the recent collapse of a bridge in Hunan province that killed over 40 people are off limits.

This makes one question what exactly will be discussed at the party congress. If the media can’t discuss real problems facing the country, will the government leaders have time to talk about them? The most important aspect of the upcoming congress will be the expected unveiling of the next generation of national leaders in a politburo reshuffle.

China has one of the world’s largest parliaments, with about 3000 delegates. Parliament meets for about two weeks a year.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 18th, 2007 at 10:34 pm and is filed under Press Freedom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.