In the spring of 1998, Gao Qinrong, a journalist, was riding high. Although a freelancer, his expose of a fraudulent multimillion-dollar irrigation scheme in Shanxi Province had made its way into half a dozen prominent state newspapers, including the People's Daily of the Communist Party.
He had also presented his work to the Communist Party's Central Discipline Inspection Committee. And his investigation was featured on China Central Television.
But these days, Gao shares a cold, cramped cell in Jinzhong prison with criminals, serving a 12-year sentence for fraud, taking bribes and pimping -- charges that his many defenders say were invented by local officials when his reporting went too far.
"He never dreamed this would happen," said Duan Maoying, his wife, an accountant, who has told their 10-year-old daughter that her father is in the US.
"He knew he was telling the truth, so he didn't think it would be a problem."
Although Chinese officials have long criticized the foreign press for sullying China's image, in the last few years they come across a far more vexing foe: a growing number of smaller newspapers and semi-independent reporters like Gao, who operate mostly outside of the official state media and respond far more quickly to the lure of a good story than to pressure from the Communist Party's Propaganda Department.
The influence of this shadow media is growing exponentially, along with China's Internet, as articles from even the most obscure newspapers quickly find their way onto Web sites and into chat rooms. And that, in turn, has put new pressure on the official media, which are losing readers and credibility in the face of this new information.
Although all news outlets in China are technically owned by the government, in many cases the connection is rather indirect.
While major newspapers are owned by Communist Party organizations and subject to tight propaganda control, smaller "mass media" papers are often started as business ventures by quasi-governmental bureaus, like a local disabled persons federation.
And controls are far more lax.
The evolving power of the shadow media was on display after an explosion at an elementary school in Jiangxi Province on March 6 left dozens dead.
While top government officials blamed a suicide bomber -- an explanation that was dutifully repeated in the main state media -- small papers and magazines like the Yangcheng Evening News and the South City News weighed in with reports from the scene, contending that the school had been forcing children to make firecrackers.
Though Chinese officials say the reporters are "irresponsible," their reports have continued to fill China's Web chat rooms.
And at the close of China's annual legislative session on March 15, Prime Minister Zhu Rongji felt compelled to promise that he would pursue a thorough investigation of the charges.
At its fringes, at least, China's news media are looking more and more like a free press -- although one whose reporters live with the risk of criticism, detention or -- like Gao -- even arrest. "The media are definitely becoming more diverse and relaxed," said a young editor, who in 1999 lost his job for publishing an article that he believes would be no problem now. "But for journalists there are still risks involved."
He, like most of the journalists interviewed for this article, spoke on condition of anonymity. The Web site where he now works was criticized for posting articles about the Jiangxi explosion.
Officials in Beijing have been deeply ambivalent about the rise of this new media, sometimes praising reporters like Gao for unearthing local corruption that would otherwise go unnoticed, but also regarding their unruly existence as deeply threatening.
"The party would like to exercise control, but with more than 2,000 papers and so many issues now open to public discussion, they can't watch them all and it's impossible to have a policy for every issue," said a senior journalist at a major party newspaper.
Originally the government's policy had been to insure that large media outlets marched in step, while leaving small ones to their own devices. "But clearly that isn't working any more," he said.
In the past year, the newspapers and magazines of the mass media have come up with the following offerings:
-- As the large Communist Party papers dutifully reported China's success in combating AIDS, the shadow media exposed a huge epidemic of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, among farmers in Henan province that had been covered up by the provincial government.
-- About a dozen smaller publications decried the use of torture by the police, giving extensive coverage to the case of a man whose tongue had been severed for criticizing conditions at a local school.
-- After the State Environmental Protection Agency declared the clean-up of China's notoriously polluted Huai River a success, small newspapers featured on-the-ground investigations showing that the water was still so polluted in some areas that it could not even be used in factories.
-- Caijing, a business magazine, has run several shocking exposes about how the Chinese government manipulates the domestic stock market in recent months.
In the past year, frustrated party officials have repeatedly exhorted reporters to speak with one voice in support of national policies. The Propaganda Department has recently initiated a campaign aimed at young reporters, to inculcate a sense of national duty and a Marxist perspective. "They are too easily influenced by the bourgeois western view of journalism," wrote Zheng Mingxiong, party secretary of the All-China Journalists Association this week.
And each week the Propaganda Department continues to issue detailed instructions aimed at the major media. For example, it recently insisted that the Falun Gong spiritual movement should be described as "crushed" rather than "banned."
Many journalists attribute the new diversity and freedom to the "marketization" of the Chinese media.
Since China has trimmed the budgets of the state bureaus that own newspapers and magazines, all but the largest publications now have to be self supporting, and that has changed their priorities. They have been forced to become more lively and interesting in order to attract readers and advertising. "In the past, reporters wouldn't dare to cross the boundary into politics," said the editor at the Internet news site. "But now readers expect to hear more of the story -- the background, the dirt."
Still, it is a risky business. When officials felt threatened by Gao Qinrong, they followed him to official meetings in Beijing and kidnapped him, driving him back to detention in Shanxi. Although many journalists and lawyers tried to attend his 1999 trial -- which he and others said featured paid witnesses and fabricated evidence -- they were not allowed in. The Shanxi High Court has refused Gao's appeal.
Many small and mid-size newspapers have protested his treatment, including this week's China Business Times. But the powerful large party papers, which once celebrated his reporting, have remained mostly silent. The All China Journalists Association does not return his wife's calls. "I feel like we're at a dead end," she said.
UPDATED (3:40pm): A suspected gas explosion at a shopping mall in Taichung this morning has killed four people and injured 20 others, as emergency responders continue to investigate. The explosion occurred on the 12th floor of the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi in Situn District (西屯) at 11:33am. One person was declared dead at the scene, while three people were declared deceased later after receiving emergency treatment. Another 20 people sustained major or minor injuries. The Taichung Fire Bureau said it received a report of the explosion at 11:33am and sent rescuers to respond. The cause of the explosion is still under investigation, it said. The National Fire
ACCOUNTABILITY: The incident, which occured at a Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store in Taichung, was allegedly caused by a gas explosion on the 12th floor Shin Kong Group (新光集團) president Richard Wu (吳昕陽) yesterday said the company would take responsibility for an apparent gas explosion that resulted in four deaths and 26 injuries at Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Zhonggang Store in Taichung yesterday. The Taichung Fire Bureau at 11:33am yesterday received a report saying that people were injured after an explosion at the department store on Section 3 of Taiwan Boulevard in Taichung’s Situn District (西屯). It sent 56 ambulances and 136 paramedics to the site, with the people injured sent to Cheng Ching Hospital’s Chung Kang Branch, Wuri Lin Shin Hospital, Taichung Veterans General Hospital or Chung
ALL-IN-ONE: A company in Tainan and another in New Taipei City offer tours to China during which Taiwanese can apply for a Chinese ID card, the source said The National Immigration Agency and national security authorities have identified at least five companies that help Taiwanese apply for Chinese identification cards while traveling in China, a source said yesterday. The issue has garnered attention in the past few months after YouTuber “Pa Chiung” (八炯) said that there are companies in Taiwan that help Taiwanese apply for Chinese documents. Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) last week said that three to five public relations firms in southern and northern Taiwan have allegedly assisted Taiwanese in applying for Chinese ID cards and were under investigation for potential contraventions of the Act Governing
‘LAWFUL USE’: The last time a US warship transited the Taiwan Strait was on Oct. 20 last year, and this week’s transit is the first of US President Donald Trump’s second term Two US military vessels transited the Taiwan Strait from Sunday through early yesterday, the Ministry of National Defense said in a statement, the first such mission since US President Donald Trump took office last month. The two vessels sailed south through the Strait, the ministry said, adding that it closely monitored nearby airspace and waters at the time and observed nothing unusual. The ministry did not name the two vessels, but the US Navy identified them as the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Ralph Johnson and the Pathfinder-class survey ship USNS Bowditch. The ships carried out a north-to-south transit from