Media law in China

This lecture will cover the regulation of media and reporters in China. We will look at how the foreign media is controlled and regulated in China, including the regulations applicable to journalists and illegal reporting activities, the recent amendments to the rules on foreign reporters, the varying treatment of foreign, domestic and Hong Kong/Macau/Taiwan journalists, the specifics restrictions and risks associated with PRC nationals working for foreign media organizations. We will also discuss issues particular to China’s domestic media environment, such as censorship and propaganda, the rise of citizen journalism and online media, the push for greater access to information (including the open government information law), the laws on state secrets and defamation law.

Speaker: Sky Canaves, former Beijing reporter, Wall Street Journal Asia

Readings:

–Foreign Correspondents Club of China Reporters’ Guide, available at http://www.fccchina.org/reporters-guide/

–Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on News Coverage by Permanent Offices of Foreign Media Organizations and Foreign Journalists (Decree of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China No. 537), available at http://ipc.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/wgjzzhznx/fj/t541164.htm

–Introduction, “The Journalism Tradition” and Chapter One, “The Danger of Libel: Wu Fang’s Search for Justice,” in Investigative Journalism in China: Eight Cases of Watchdog Journalism, Edited by David Bandurski and Martin Hala, Hong Kong University Press (2010), pp. 1-33. (handout)

Reporting on the Mainland (Chapter 9), Hong Kong Media Law (See also, chapter updates, 2011, 2010, 2009 and 2008)

–Gittings, “Hong Kong’s Courts are Learning to Live with China,” July 2010, Hong Kong Journal

Supplementary:

Li and Weisenhaus, “China,” Encyclopedia of Journalism (Sage 2009)

Fu, “Counter-Revolutionaries, Subversives and Terrorists: China’s Evolving National Security Law,” (Chapter 2), and Weisenhaus, “Article 23 and Freedom of the Press:  A Journalistic Perspective,” National Security and Fundamental Freedoms: Hong Kong’s Article 23 Legislation Under Scrutiny (HKU Press 2005)