East-West Center Media Conference

ENGLISH TRANSLATION:
The change and development of Chinese Press System

Li Datong

I’m very honored to be invited to the meeting to say something about my personal observation of the change and development of Chinese Press System.
End of last year, a young Chinese journalist Mr. Wang Youfeng published an article on the internet to summarize the present situation of journalism in China in year 2007 . “Depression and Distress” is the name of the article, it listed many unsatisfactory facts of journalism in China in year 2007 such as journalists were treated like manual laborers, false news reports and fake news reward ceremony, vulgarization of the news content, the vulnerable status of media in front of political and economical authority, as well as the so called ” government journalism” aiming at controlling the media was started in mainland China. He said it was one of the most depressing and shameful year for the press. But the former vice chief editor of People’s daily who is well known for his openness commented that newspaper, television and internet worked in a cooperative manner, creating a high point in the Chinese media in 2007.
These are viewpoints from both positive and negative side towards the media in the past year and each has his own facts to support. I myself prefer to observe the performance of Chinese media in a dynamic viewpoint.
The 17th National Representative Congress of Chinese Communist Party will be held in 2007. Based on the past experiences, news blackout departments, like Chinese Propaganda Ministry of CCCPC, will request media this year to highlight “reports on achievement”, and to strictly control “the negative information”. Actually the similar things have been done. It is said that about one thousand BBS forums have been blocked temporarily, so that to avoid “making trouble” during the period of the 17th NPCCCP. As a result of strict controlling to media, it’s possible to create media a sad year. However, in the past year, the Chinese media more was not sad than the old times, they had many astounding performance on the contrary.

1. Three important events symbolize reforms on institution
On 1st of January, 2007, the “Regulation on Acquisitioning for Foreign Journalists during the Beijing Olympic Game and Its Preparation”, stipulated by State Council of China, became effective duly. This regulation has actually decontrolled all of limits imposed on foreign journalists with their press interview. There are the words: the journalist can gather any news as long as interviewee agrees to be interviewed. This is a progress on system. Moreover, more than one officials show their willingness that this regulation will go on beyond the period of “Beijing Olympic and its Preparation”.
On 15th of April, 2007, the Premier Minister Wen Jiabao signed and issued the “Rules on Information Releasing of PRC”, which will become effective on the 1st of May, 2008. Undoubtedly, this rule support to the Chinese people to broaden their rights of knowing the facts and monitoring the cases. It will also provide media legitimization and acting space to obtain information from government legally.
On the 24th of June, 2007, the Standing Committee of People’s Representative Assembly of China had examined and revised the “Draft Law Against Emergencies”, in which the article 57 had been left out. This article stipulated that any news media will be imposed a fine between fifty thousand Yuan and a hundred thousand Yuan by the local government, in case they run counter to regulations, without authorization, to release the news on emergency-handling situation or to report fictitiously the situation. This article had been strongly queried owing to its obvious limits on news reporting rights. The deliberation on this article by SCPRAC had frustrated the attempt from Chinese conservatives to seek legal basis for media-controlling.

2. Discussions on Direction of China’s Political System Reform Not Suppressed, but Uninterruptedly Sustained.
On the 3rd of January this year, an article named “Democracy Is a Good Thing” written by Yu Keping who is a scholar, had been published both on two official newspapers in Beijing. This article is nothing but a common explanation on democratic system, and it even cannot be called an academic paper. However, because it sang praise for democracy under people’s universal expectation of political reform, it was viewed as a meaningful signal. After that, this article had been reprinted extensively thorough the country, and evoked an enthusiastically web-debate. The words “Democracy is a good thing” had become the most popular in China in 2007, which in fact evoked a deep discussion on China’s democracy. It had been evaluated as making “The Most Strong Impact in 2007” by many Chinese media.
In February in Beijing this year, an article named “Democratic Socialism and China’s Prospect”, written by Xie Tao who had been a veteran member of CP and the Ex-Assistant Principal of People’s University, was published in the magazine “Yan Huang Chun Qiu”. The article put forward an idea that “Only the Democratic Socialism Could Relieve China”. It made a clear description that “Some people said that our system is extremely good, and we definitely do not imitate the Western Democracy and its ‘Tripartite’ political system. However, evaluating a political system is not a theoretical issue, but a practicing issue. Practice is the sole criterion for testing truth. Our political system neither could prevent more than five hundred thousand intellectuals from being set as the Rightists, nor could restraint the frenzied arousing of People’s Commune Organization and Great Leap Forward. When the Fascistic Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution abolished constitution and interrupted the parliament activity, there was no any resistance with our political system. Didn’t it conform to reality that our political system had not taken any effects to protect democracy, freedom and constitution?” The publishing of such an article, of which couched in harsh terms and offended political forbidden area, had as well triggered a great web-debate among many political forces related to China’s political reform. Fortunately, the magazine “Yan Huang Chun Qiu” has not been blocked. Obviously, these debates have been closely watched by China’s high-ranking organizations. Also there are some responses in the political report of the 17th NRCCCP.

3. Reports on Maintaining Human Rights Had Unprecedentedly Been Top Theme in China’s Media in 2007. Main Events Refereed Briefly as Below.
In March of 2007, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao remarked to China and foreign journalists that “Democracy, legality, freedom, human rights, equality and universal fraternity are not characteristics in with capitalistic countries. They are not only the civilization fruits achieved jointly in the long development history of world, but also the common values which human being have been pursuing jointly.” This is the first time that China’s leader has admitted that China is no exception with the common values of human being.
In the last ten days of March in 2007, a building property destiny of an ordinary family in Chongqing initiated media-group report on the issue in China. Whether this small building, which its owner was called “the most arrogant tartar in history”, would be pulled down forcefully without getting any fair compensation from the local government, aroused the public enormous interests. The intervention from public opinion finally caused this public event to be solved peacefully.
In mid-May, a TV reporter, whose name is Fu Zhenzhong, from Henan Television Station, after a month-long investigation, photographed a serial TV report which reflected small coal pits in Shanxi Province enslaving the kiln labor. As soon as the sinister projects were exposed, it evolved into “the public opinion storm”, which the national media called the government to account. The issue had caused the central government to pay much attention, and the Shanxi Governor had to apologize to national people.
In June of 2007, people in Xiamen City spontaneously held a protested-“walk”, in the aim of opposing to construct a large-scale chemical industry project in this fine scenery traveling city. This event received attention throughout the country and was reported continuously by China’s media. Before long, the local government expressed that they were willing to compromise to local people, therefore a decision that the chemical plant moves its site had been made.
In December of 2007, 69 experts submitted a letter of “citizen proposal” to National People’s Congress, which requested to start examination on the education-through-labor system which violated the constitution. In view of the fact that “violation of the constitution” is still a sensitive topic in China, and considering that there are some liberal intellectuals, who are not welcome by authorities, among these 69 scholars, the public report through media on this matter demonstrated the courage and responsibility of media.
In 2007, there were some officials from several county government received consistent exposition and criticism through China’s media, because of their retaliation on critics.
There are many reports which are worth to be mentioned. Summarizing the past year, some media called it as “the public opinion year”, “the civil rights year”. Recently, there was a questionnaire survey for 56 “media leader in China” released. One of the questions was: “In the past year, what changes have made within the space of your media report?” Fifty percent of the media leader answered “expanded”, thirty four percent of them “narrowed”, and another sixteen percent of them thought that there were no changes. The interpretation of this data is, even if under a tight control, the basic ecological situation for Chinese media has not been easy to make the fundamental reversal. This is one kind of social progress without doubt.
Implemented the reform and open-up policy from 1978, China’s economic basis and economical movement way has already had the fundamental change in the recent 30 years. Compared with Mao Zedong’s time in China, China has already turned into a different China. Although the transformation on China’s political systems, including news system, are by far behind the one in the economical domain, the changes have still been remarkable. The changes can be summarized mainly in the following several aspects.

Firstly, the traditional national ideology out of the Ruling Party in China had already gone bankrupt. The official propagandists who depended upon the ideology doctrine to undertake “the mass criticism” mission have already vanished on the whole. The idea of democracy, freedom, legality and human rights guaranteeing has already sunk deeply into the hearts of the people.
Secondly, it has been very hard to find the media workers now who believed that “the news is the propaganda”; “the news is party’s mouthpiece and the tool”. The contemporary media workers in China have already had the same common professional values with their international colleagues’. The values, the rule and the technology which the international news community followed have obtained a widespread introduction, and the news professionalism has obtained the popularization. With regard to the information from governments, China’s media have already realized to examine and explain explicitly based on their influence on the public, and based on which social group would benefit from them.
Thirdly, started from the mid-term of the 80’s last century, China has formed a city newspaper group which distributed the newspapers mainly to the readers in the specific city and area. The editing criteria for the contents in this kind of papers are whether the readers care about, whether the readers love to see and hear. After more than 20 years’ development, China’s city newspapers have demonstrated their formidable vitality. Not only have this kind of newspapers gone far beyond the traditional mainstream full-sized newspaper in the quantity issued and the advertising revenue, but also their reporting domains have far exceeded the limits on region. They have already undertaken the mission as a main channel to provide the information for the Chinese publics.
Fourthly, since the mid-term of the 90’s last century, China’s internet had expanded explosively. The quantity of internet users has achieved to 160 million in such a short time of more than ten years. At present there have been 1.3 million websites and BBS forums with about 40 million personal blogs as well. Quite often, internet is able to spread any local news nation-widely; hence the news became the focus of national attention. Some primary information which look like incoherent on internet could possibly be found by traditional media at any time, and then be made up as an important news by means of professional method. On the internet, important news would almost cause comments immediately from internet readers. Thousands of comments could form a public opinion rapidly, which will become an invisible power that the authority cannot neglect.
Fifthly, started from the mid-term of the 90’s of last century, independent commentary from China’s media emerged and has been strengthen day by day. Normally, the media would express prompt opinions, in view of China’s contemporary events, phenomena, government policies, and leaders’ opinion and so on. The opinion version area that the media set up has received the readers’ highest attention and welcome.
Sixthly, the idea from the national leaders and quite part of officials has already changed. In the report of the 17th NRCCPC, there listed four political rights, of which are “the right to know, the right to participate, the expression right and the supervisory authority right”. Among these four rights, the concept of “expression right” has been the first time appeared in the political report of NRCCPC. Obviously, this is the formulation which started to connect to the article of “Everybody has right to express opinion freely” in UN’s “Rights of Citizens and International Convention on Political Rights”.

In generalization for media, even though the value orientation in the supreme leader’s public indication has been closing up to the international human rights standards, the surveillance and control method has still been the traditional one in the actual operation. In other words, there is an obvious conflict between the public rules and “secret rules”, which basically characterizes the contemporary news’ situation in China. This conflict would provide China’s journalists with ideal a political acting space to contend the “secret rules” with the public rules. And this will be in future certain years the essential method for China’s journalist to expand their report domain.
In the end of 2007, a newspaper with high prestige in China, the “Southern Weekend”, had made a questionnaire survey among the “media leader” in China. Fifty six media had been selected meaningfully, among which there were no the traditional supreme newspaper “People’s Daily” as well as the most popularized CCTV. All of the selected media came from the market-oriented media such as city newspapers, magazines and private-run websites. This kind of selection embodied the silent pattern transformation in China’s media. It is well known that one of functions for media in social life is to “put up subject”, which will receive the audiences and readers great attention and thus cause discussion. From the 80’s to the mid-term of 90’s last century, China’s state-level media mainly undertook this kind of mission. However, since the mid-term of the 90’s, along with the emerging and rapid development of China’s metropolis newspaper and the internet, this important function as “put up subject” has started a shift. According to my observation, by the year 2007, the function of “put up subject” in China’s media the function has been undertaken by the metropolis newspapers and the internet in majority. On the contrary, the traditional state-level mainstream media follows on the heels at every step. This is an important change, which reflects the ruling-party’s management method on media has landed at a tight corner, because of their lacking of the constructive foresight, the long-range objectives and the legal foundation.
The interesting thing is, the most concealed department the Organization Department and the Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Central Committee of the CPC have begun to adapt the tidal current. They set up the system of news spokesperson and invited foreign reporter to visit. In contrast, however, the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the CPC, which originally should function as the main public relationship department to maintain the ruling-party’s image, has been operating inwardly. They dare not face at the media and the public. Nowadays, the media-management from the Propaganda Department has nothing except the defensive administrative prohibition rules which has thrown them into confusion already. Because there are no any morality and justice foundation as well as the constitution basis slightly, and it even does not conform to the CPC leader’s public manifesto, the media inspection authority has increasingly received social attack and the public revolt. The Propaganda Department thus was bantered as “non-propaganda department”. As a direct result of this narrow-minded control measurement, the state-level mainstream media, which once obtained the public trust and the good image after the reform and open up policy implemented, has been withering and falling day after day. However, some brand columns with bright characteristics of mainly taking the supervision of public opinion, and once obtained the extremely high prestige, have suffered a disastrous decline in reputation after they have been forced to undertake propaganda task frequently in recent years. The giant government resources have been wasting, but the public opinion influence has been marginalized day by day. Without a doubt, this is similar as the chronic suicide.
In the survey made by the above mentioned “Southern Weekend”, there are two more indexes, of which one is that 76.92% of media leaders approved the “Law on News” be included in session of next National People’s Congress’s legislation plan, and another is that 53.49% of media have their plan to be listed in the stock market. Both of two data indicated that, the media leaders discontented universally to the present news control system. They expected that they can legally undertake their tasks as soon as possible. Moreover, the process of becoming a listed company gradually will let more and more media becoming an independent economic entity. Based on this, the media will pay much attention to the market achievement and will be more responsible for the shareholders, and thus will lead the media to get rid of the government dependency.
The year 2008 is an important year to China, in which the most important is the Olympic Games which will be held in August. It estimated that there will be more than 10,000 foreign reporters and journalists entering China to carry on the report. What the foreign media care about mostly is whether the Olympic Games will propel the freedom of press and the political system transformation in China. My judgment will be, in view of the fact that this is an unprecedented state-level image building project, the Chinese government will not permit the domestic media in the Olympic Games period to report the so-called “negative news”, but it will further reduce limits and interventions to the foreign media. Effects on China of holding the Olympic Games will be the effects that make China even more understand the world, and more open up to the world. The manner Government’s behavior will be compelled gradually to close up the gap with the international standard. Of course, this influence will last long-term, we could not count on getting the remarkable function actually in short 15 days.
The year 2008 will also see the 30th anniversary of China’s reform and opening policy up to the world. The Chinese leaders had pledged already that they would continue to emancipate the mind, to earnestly summarize the experiences and lessons within these 30 years. I believed that, after reviewing the course in these 30 years, the Chinese media will certainly make their own sound. In fact, just at the new year’s day of 2008, Mr. Ling Cangzhou, a senior journalist in China, published an open letter which was sent to the Chinese leader. He made ten suggestions in the letter related to implementing as soon as possible the right of freedom of speech which stipulated in the China’s constitution. The letter has had a widespread sympathetic chord in China.
Year 2008, media of China will not stay in silence.

中国新闻体制的变革与发展

李大同

各位来宾：中午好！
很荣幸接到会议邀请，向各位报告一下我个人对中国新闻体制的变革与发展的观察。
去年年底，中国一位年轻的新闻工作者王又锋在网上发表了一篇他对2007年中国新闻业现状的总结，题目叫做《沮丧与忧伤》，这个总结列举了2007年中国新闻种种令人不满的现实，其中包括记者被媒体当作“民工”一样对待、假新闻和新闻评奖假版面的出现、传媒内容的低俗化、媒体在政治和经济权势面前的弱者地位，以及以控制媒体为目标的“政府新闻学”在中国大陆出笼的等等现实，他称之为“是新闻行业最为沉闷的一年，是整个行业蒙羞的一年”。而素有开明声誉的原人民日报副总编辑周瑞金对2007年中国新闻的评论是：“报刊、广播电视、网络三大媒体联手配合，交相辉映，是2007年中国媒体的一大亮点。”
这是分别从消极和积极两个角度评论过去一年的结果，都有各自的事实为依据。我本人更倾向从变化的角度来观察中国媒体的表现。
2007年，将要召开中共十七大，按过去的经验，中宣部等新闻管制部门会要求媒体这一年始终突出“成就报道”，严格控制“负面信息”，实际上也这样做了，据说有上千个BBS论坛因避免“出现麻烦”在17大召开期间临时关闭。强力控制的结果，完全可能造成媒体沉闷的一年。然而一年过去了，回顾起来，中国媒体并不比往年更为沉闷，反倒有不少令人惊奇的表现。
一、在制度的变革上，有三个值得记录的事件：
2007年1月1日，中国国务院颁布的《北京奥运会及其筹备期间外国记者在华采访规定》正式生效。《规定》实际取消了外国记者在中国采访活动的所有限制，“只要采访对象同意接受采访，就可以进行采访”。这是一项体制上的进步，而且，所谓“奥运会及其筹备期间“的时间段规定，已有不止一个官员表示会延续下去。
2007年4月15日，中国国务院总理温家宝签发了《中华人民共和国政府信息公开条例》。这个条例将在今年5月1日开始生效。毫无疑问，这将会为中国公民扩大知情权和监督权提供支持，也为媒体依法获得政府信息提供了制度上的合法性和博弈空间。
2007年6月24日，中国人大常委会审议修改了《突发事件应对法草案》，原草案第57条被删除。该条曾规定：“新闻媒体违反规定擅自发布有关突发事件处置工作的情况和事态发展的信息或者报道虚假情况，情节严重或者造成严重后果的，由所在地履行统一领导职责的人民政府处5万元以上10万元以下的罚款。”这条规定因明显限制媒体的报道权引发强烈质疑。全国人大常委会的审议结果，挫败了中国保守势力为媒体管制提供法律依据的尝试。

二、中国政治体制改革方向的讨论不仅没有被压制住，反而一直持续不断。
1月3日，北京两家官方报纸先后刊登了学者俞可平的文章《民主是个好东西》。这篇文章不过是关于民主制度的一个通俗化的解说，甚至不能称为是一篇学术文章。但是在中国民众对政治变革的普遍期待下，公开赞扬民主被读者看作是一个意味深长的信号，此后，这篇文章被广泛转载，在网络上引起热烈辩论，“民主是个好东西”成为中国2007年最流行的词语，实际上引发了关于中国民主的一场深入人心的讨论。不久前，这篇文章被多家中国媒体评定为2007年“最有影响力的文章”。
2月，北京《炎黄春秋》杂志，公开发表了老资格的共产党员、原人民大学副校长谢韬的文章《民主社会主义与中国前途》，提出“只有民主社会主义才能救中国”。文章明确提出：“有人说我们的制度好得很，决不学西方民主、三权分立那一套。一个制度好不好，不是个理论问题，而是个实践问题。实践是检验真民主和假民主的唯一标准。我们的制度不能阻止把五十多万知识分子打成右派，不能阻止公社化和大跃进的疯狂发动，当法西斯式的文化大革命废止宪法、停止议会活动的时候，我们的制度没有任何反抗。说这个制度在保障民主、保障自由、保卫宪法尊严方面，形同摆设，丝毫不起作用，难道不符合事实吗？”这样一篇措辞严厉、严重触犯政治禁区的文章公开发表，同样引发了关于中国政治改革各派政治势力的网上大辩论。《炎黄春秋》杂志并没有因此而被封杀。很明显，这次辩论受到高层的密切关注，在中共17大的政治报告中，也对这次辩论有所回应。

三、维护人权的报道前所未有地成为中国媒体2007年的主旋律。值得提及的事件有：
3月，中国国家总理温家宝对中外记者表示：“民主、法制、自由、人权、平等、博爱，这不是资本主义所特有的，这是整个世界在漫长的历史过程中共同形成的文明成果，也是人类共同追求的价值观。”这是中国领导人首次承认在人类普世价值面前，中国没有例外。
3月下旬，中国重庆一户普通人家的房产命运，引发中国媒体集团式报道，被称为“史上最牛钉子户”的小楼，是否会在未获得公平补偿的前提下被政府强行拆迁，引起公众极大关注。舆论的强力干预最终使这次公共事件获得和平解决。
5月中旬，中国河南电视台记者付振中，经过一个月的调查，拍摄了山西黑砖窑奴役窑工的系列片，黑幕一经揭开，即演化为全国媒体问责政府的“舆论风暴”，引起中央政府高度关注，山西省长为此公开向全国人民道歉。
6月，中国厦门公众为反对在这个风景优美的旅游城市兴建大型化工项目，自发举行了抗议“散步”。这个事件始终受到中国媒体的关注和连续报道。不久前，当地政府向民众意愿妥协，做出了化工厂迁址的决定。
12月，69名专家学者向全国人大提交公民建议书，要求启动对劳动教养制度的违宪审查。鉴于“违宪”在中国还属敏感话题，这69名学者中也有不少当局不喜欢的自由派知识分子，此事得到公开报道显示出媒体的勇气和责任。
2007年，中国几个县的政府官员对批评者非法报复，受到中国媒体一致的揭露和批评。等等。
值得提及的报道还有很多。不少媒体在总结过去的一年，称为是“民意年”、“民权年”是有根据的。最近，一份对56位“中国传媒领袖”问卷调查，其中的一个问题是：“过去一年，您所在的媒体的报道空间发生了什么变化？”50%的传媒领导者的回答是“扩大了”，34%的人回答是“缩小了”，另有16%认为没有变化。这个数据说明，即便在严密控制下，中国传媒的基本生态已经不容易发生根本性逆转。这无疑是一种社会进步。
自1978年实行改革开放，近30年来，中国的经济基础和经济运行方式已经发生了根本性的变化，与毛泽东时代的中国相比，已经变成了另一个中国。中国的政治体制包括新闻体制的变革，虽然远远滞后于经济领域，然而变化仍然是显著的。这种变化概括起来，主要是以下几个方面。
一．中国执政党传统的国家意识形态已经破产，依靠僵化的意识形态教条承担“大批判”使命的官方宣传家已经基本绝迹。民主、自由、法制和保障人权的理念已经深入人心。
二．相信“新闻就是宣传”、“新闻是党的喉舌和工具”的媒体从业者，现在很难找到了。当代中国新闻人，已经具有与国际同行共同的职业价值观念。世界新闻共同体遵循的价值观、规则和技术得到广泛的介绍，新闻专业精神得到普及。中国媒体对来自政府部门的信息，已经意识明确地从对公众有何影响、利益所得是哪些社会集团来审视和解读。
三．从上世纪80年代中期开始，中国形成了主要面对特定城市和地区受众发行的城市报群。这类报纸的内容以读者是否关心、是否喜闻乐见为主要取舍标准；经过20多年的发展，中国城市报显示出强大的生命力。这类报纸不仅在发行量和广告收入上，远远超过了传统的主流大报，报道领域也远远超出了地域限制，已经承载起为中国公众提供信息的主渠道的使命。
四．自上世纪90年代中期以来，中国的互联网有了爆炸性扩展，短短十年多的时间里，互联网用户已达1.6亿；目前已有网站及BBS论坛130万个，另外还有近4000万个个人博客。互联网往往将任何一条地方新闻，一夜之间扩展为全国性新闻，成为全国瞩目的热点。互联网上看起来支离破碎的原生信息，随时可能被传统媒体发现并通过职业手段使之构成重要新闻。在互联网上，重要新闻几乎都会立即得到网民的评论，数以万计的网民评论迅速形成舆论，成为当局不可忽视的无形力量。
五．自上世纪90年代中期开始，中国媒体的独立评论开始出现并日益得到强化。针对当代中国的事件、现象、政府政策、领导人言论等等，媒体现在一般都有及时的意见表达。媒体普遍开设的意见版块，受到读者最高的关注和欢迎。
六．国家领导人和相当一部分官员，观念已经有所变化。在中共17大报告中，引人注目地提出要保障人民的四项政治权利“知情权、参与权、表达权、监督权”，其中表达权的概念，首次出现在中共代表大会的政治报告里，很明显，这是与联合国《公民权利与政治权利国际公约》中“人人有自由发表意见的权利”的条文开始接轨的表述。
概括起来说，对媒体而言，最高领导人的公开表述，其价值取向逐渐在向国际人权标准靠拢，而在实际运作中，仍然在暗中沿袭传统的管制手段。也就是说，公开的规则与“潜规则”之间已经发生明显的冲突。这是当代中国新闻现状的一个基本特征。这种冲突，为有理想的中国新闻工作者提供了政治博弈的空间，用公开的规则抗衡“潜规则”，将是未来若干年里中国新闻工作者扩大报道领域的基本手段。
2007年年末，中国有声望的报纸《南方周末》，做了一次中国“传媒领袖”的问卷调查，这56家传媒的选择很有意味：既没有传统党报里体制地位最高的人民日报，也没有受众最多的中央电视台，清一色地选择了市场取向的都市报、杂志和民营网站。这种选择是中国传媒格局悄然变化的体现。众所周知，传媒在社会生活中的作用之一，在于“设置议题”，即受到受众较大的关注和讨论的“议题”，通常是由媒体设定的。自上世纪八十年代至九十年代中期，中国中央级媒体主要承担这种使命，而自九十年代中期开始，随着中国都市报和互联网的诞生和快速发展，这项重要功能逐渐开始转移。到2007年，就我个人的观察，中国媒体“议题设置”的功能，已经大部分由都市报和互联网承担，传统中央级主流媒体，反倒是跟在后面亦步亦趋。这是一项重要的变化。这种变化显示出中国执政党的媒体管理手段因严重缺乏建设性远见、长期目标和法律基础而陷入困境。
有趣的是，中共最隐秘的部门中组部和中纪委都已开始适应潮流，设立新闻发言人并邀请外国记者参观，而本应当成为维护执政党形象主要公关部门的中宣部，却始终在暗箱操作，不敢面对媒体和公众。中宣部对媒体的管理，现在除了手忙脚乱的防御性行政禁令外已没有其他手段，这种媒体检查权力，因丝毫没有道义基础和宪法依据，甚至也不符合中共领导人的公开宣言而日益受到社会抨击和公开反抗，民间将中宣部戏称为“不宣传部”。这种目光狭隘的管制的一个直接结果，是使改革开放后一度重新获得公众信任和良好形象的中央级主流媒体日渐凋落；一些主要以舆论监督为鲜明特色的名牌栏目，曾经获得极高声望，然而近几年在被强迫频繁执行宣传任务后，原有口碑也一落千丈。巨大的政府资源在被无效浪费，而舆论影响力却日益边缘化，毫无疑问，这是在慢性自杀。
在上面提到的《南方周末》的调查中，还有两个重要的指标，一是76.92%的传媒领袖赞成将“新闻法”列入下届人大的立法规划；二是有53.49%的媒体有成为上市公司的计划。这两个数据表明，媒体领袖普遍对目前的新闻管理制度不满，期望能够尽快依法从业。另外，逐渐成为上市公司的进程，会使越来越多的媒体成为独立的经济实体，媒体将更加重视市场业绩并对广大股东负责，进一步摆脱政府附庸的地位。
2008年对中国是重要的一年，其中最重要的，是将在8月份举行的奥运会，据估计将有超过1万名外国记者进入中国进行报道。国外媒体最关注的，是奥运会是否会推动中国新闻自由的开放和政治体制的变革。我个人的判断是，鉴于这是一项前所未有的国家级形象工程，中国政府将不会允许国内媒体在奥运会期间对所谓“负面新闻”的报道，然而对外国媒体的限制和干预将会进一步减少。举办奥运会对中国的作用，将会使中国更加了解世界、更加开放；政府的行为方式，将被迫逐渐向国际标准靠拢，这种影响是长期的，却不会在短短15天里产生显著作用。
2008年还是中国改革开放30周年，中国领导人已承诺要继续解放思想，认真总结这30年的经验教训。我本人相信，在回顾这30年的历程时，中国媒体的有识之士一定会发出自己的声音。实际上，就在新年开始的这一天，中国一位资深新闻工作者凌沧州，就发表了致中国国家领导人的公开信，就尽快在中国落实宪法所规定的言论自由提出了十项建议，产生了广泛共鸣。
2008年，中国媒体不会在鸦雀无声中度过。
谢谢各位！

2008.1.20