vigilant TV

A new Chinese government plan will require journalists to pass tests on Communist Party propaganda. Licenses will be issued ostensibly to ensure journalistic integrity; but revocations will likely be handed out to those who stray from the official party line.

Journalists who pass the tests will be certified, but certificates can be withdrawn if they “violate news discipline”, an official of the State Press and Publication Administration, Lin Jiang, was quoted as saying by Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post.

“The certification is not a life-long guarantee. Violators’ certifications would be withdrawn; they might be barred from re-taking the qualification examinations for a couple of years, or for life,” Mr Lin said.

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A senior journalist with a government information service said he wanted to be cautious about commenting on the new system. “Working as a journalist in a non-democratic country, we have to have a high awareness of what to say, and what not to say,” he said.

However, it appeared that the vetting system would involve the Communist Party’s propaganda department, the Press Administration and the State Personnel Ministry. It would start with journalists employed by central government agencies, move to national media, and then to regional media, taking about five years to certify all the country’s 400,000 journalists.

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Authorities have already fired a warning shot since last month’s Communist Party congress. An editor at a southern Chinese newspaper was sacked for publishing a satirical item portraying the new party secretary-general, Hu Jintao, as a puppet leader, with his predecessor Jiang Zemin still holding the strings.

– The Age, China forces journalists to toe party line.