RConversation: Nieman's China troubles

Harvard's Nieman Foundation has canceled plans to sponsor a week long training session for Chinese officials who will be handling media for the Beijing 2008 Olympics. The cancellation came after several Nieman alumni raised concerns that: 1) training officials in what is essentially p.r. goes beyond the Nieman mandate (mainly a program for accomplished mid-career journalists who are selected to spend a year at Harvard, taking classes, receiving training, and reflecting on their craft); and 2) the Chinese government is no big friend of free speech, and thus there were concerns that the Nieman training would help them refine their lying techniques. For articles on the whole hoopla, see the New York Times, a Boston Globe Op-Ed and news article, and a Washington Post article.

Many human rights groups have objected to holding the Olympics in China. Human Rights Watch has a whole website dedicated to its concerns about holding the Olympics in China, given its human rights record and lack of freedom of speech. In 2001 before China won its Olympic bid, HRW issued a statement which declared, among other things:

"We want the I.O.C. to seek written assurances that if Beijing is selected, the international media covering the Games will have unrestricted access to the country and that there will be no discrimination against journalists or participants based on their political or religious views or country of origin."

To my knowledge, the I.O.C. (International Olympic Committee) has not gotten such written assurances.

So what was the point of the planned Nieman training? Well, as it so happens, I was asked to help plan and participate in the training. Why was I interested in doing this? I spent 9 years being on the receiving end of official Chinese lies. Not only that, I spent many hours in police detention, was subject to surveillance, had my videotapes confiscated and had satellite transmission signals blocked when we were trying to report things the Chinese government didn't want the world to see. I have no interest in teaching them how to lie better. While I can't speak for the other organizers, I certainly intended to use my presence at the training as an opportunity to tell these people that lying doesn't pay off in the long run, and makes them look like thugs in the short run anyway. I felt that it was worthwhile to at least try to convince Chinese officials that openness, honesty, and transparency is ultimately the best p.r.

Interestingly, at least some journalists currently based in China think the training would likely have been a good thing, on balance. Fons Tuinstra wrote on his blog:

I do not agree with the Pavlov-reaction of the quoted journalists. What China is dearly missing is more exposure to the rest of the world, especially when it concerns the media. That is one of the reason why I think it is important to join this kind of meetings and participate in it. Of course, it does make a difference whether you are training journalists or officials, but both need it very much.

After the Nieman alumni started raising objections - but before curator Bob Giles decided to pull out of the training - I sent an email to the organizers, including Prof. Ezra Vogel, former director of Harvard's Fairbank Center for East Asian Research. I suggested that we should be more public about the planning process in order to prevent further misunderstanding. I also suggested that I should be allowed to blog the whole training event - which would probably make the Chinese officials uncomfortable, but would give them a taste of the kind of openness we are advocating.

In response, Prof. Vogel asked me to convey the following on my blog:

1) none of us want to help China hide bad things going on. 2) the purpose of our seminar is to make it easier for China to respond to wishes of US journalists trying to get a fuller story of what is going on in China, 3) we believe that our program will in balance contribute to more rather than less opportunity for US journalists to get the full story in China.

My understanding is that the training may still happen under some other auspices (probably not Nieman's), but the organizers will need to make the planning process more transparent and be more pro-active about making the real purpose clear. The Chinese aren't the only people with p.r. challenges.