Chinese social media storm over reporter’s eye-roll highlights impatience with staged political events
Audrey Jiajia Li says the enthusiastic response to a reporter’s disdainful reaction to a question at a press conference at China’s annual parliamentary meeting sheds light on people’s frustration with how carefully choreographed official events are
When I covered the “two sessions” – the annual meetings of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference – for the first time as a local television journalist nearly 10 years ago, I didn’t realise how much media freedom, by Chinese standards, reporters enjoyed at the time. I was called on several times to ask high-ranking central government officials questions. When I raised a tough question about Pearl River pollution to the environmental protection minister, my boss was a bit nervous. Nevertheless, things turned out fine.
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Several years later, the relatively relaxed atmosphere had all but gone. Almost every single question at every press conference had to be submitted beforehand for screening and every journalist who got chosen was on script.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi looks on during a press conference on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress meeting in Beijing, on March 8. It has become almost impossible for reporters to get called upon at China’s official press conferences without submitting their questions in advance for screening. Photo: EPA-EFE
I still put my hand up each year but never got lucky again. Only a photograph of me was once published as an example of women journalists working hard during the Congress session on International Women’s Day. When journalists become the news themselves, it usually indicates that something is not right.
It happened this year again.
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A Shanghai-based reporter, Liang Xiangyi, failed to contain her extremely annoyed reaction to a fellow reporter’s 40-second long fawning question that was spun out on not-so-relevant topics such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the 40th anniversary of the country’s reforms. Unlike most other journalists, who would simply identify themselves by their affiliations, Zhang Huijun, the reporter asking the softball question, emphasised her title, operating director of the American Multimedia Television USA.
