How China's Propaganda Machine Works

How China's Propaganda Machine Works Joan Maltese Special for NewsMax.com Friday, July 4, 2003
It's the tail end of the graveyard shift in a newsroom in Beijing. Abandoned glasses of shrubby teas stand among the computer terminals, looking like biology experiments. As the on-duty Foreign Expert at China Central Television's English-language news channel, I am tapping out the headlines for the 8 a.m. broadcast, which have been carefully chosen and sequenced by the director and producer. As for me, I’m well versed in the verbiage the censor will require. Accordingly, I write:
Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Hu Jintao delivers an important speech on how to continue using agriculture to build an all-around well-off society.
Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Chairman Li Ruihuan says Macao has witnessed social stability and sustained economic expansion since it returned to the mainland’s umbrella.
Plane crashes in Turkey and the U.S. kill 96. That wraps up 8 a.m. I click the Submit button and go for a walk through the silent halls and cells of the CCTV-9 news offices, trying not to disturb the 50 percent of the staff who are sound asleep.
This is the headquarters of a national news service reaching millions of households in China, plus satellite subscribers in Britain and France, and Fox cable satellite subscribers in selected U.S. cities. The Fox cable deal prompted several changes, including expansion to 24-hour coverage, because it is a hopeful spearhead into the global media market. “Your first window on China,” goes our motto. “China’s best foot forward,” is the unofficial strategy.
You’d think the place would be noisy and busy, even with the graveyard staff winding down. Phones ringing, editors needling for an exact quotation, the director pressing the techies to make sure the links are up for a live interview. But not at CCTV-9 – not now, nor on the evening news shift with North Korea and Iraq both on the brink of war and the Columbia space shuttle just blown up with its crew.
With the exception of a handful of mostly upbeat field reports and the government-issue propaganda, our news all comes from wire services. Pull it off the computer, shape it to suit the party line, and shunt it off to the censor, at least one of whom is onsite around the clock. No communication with remote bureaus or foreign-based reporters, no exclusives, no contacts, no fussing with time differences, no pressure. It’s a good place to catch up on your sleep.
China Central Television is the state-controlled television broadcast service. It falls under the authority of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television and has suffered the attention of the Chinese leader himself.
“Jiang Zemin, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, yesterday called on the country’s mass media to create a ‘sound atmosphere’ for the Party’s upcoming congress,” began a front-page item in an August 2002 issue of the China Daily, the government’s English-language propaganda sheet. China’s media were so obedient to this call that what should have been rival organizations were giving each other plugs. “China’s leading newspaper,” began a CCTV-9 broadcast just before the congress, “the People’s Daily, will run an editorial Friday hailing the opening of the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party in Beijing. … The editorial also notes that the thought of [Jiang Zemin’s] “Three Represents” has provided fundamental answers to vital questions.[1]
To add another level of incest, the source for the CCTV-9 item was Xinhua, China’s official news agency. (Is anyone trying to scoop anyone here? Is anyone watching his rival’s every comma to expose untruths? Does anyone risk losing audience to the competition for peddling pap?)
Closer to the ground, it’s harder to tell who’s in charge of what exactly or how everything fits together. There is no organizational chart available to employees at CCTV-9, no roster or handbook or HR department or company newsletter or all-hands meetings or any other formal means of acquainting employees with the organization they work for. Language barriers in the newsroom go largely unaddressed. Changes come down from management like thunderbolts. The budget is opaque, although it is known that salaries for Chinese staff are routinely five months in arrears.
China’s Larry King
If you’re not one of our satellite subscribers outside China, you can go to cctv-9.com and watch our broadcasts to get an idea of why we’re here. China has opened up and reformed! Our news shows look just like yours! We have actual anchors who wear neckties! (Another channel, CCTV-12, has an interview set so similar to Larry King’s that it’s probably some sort of copyright infringement.)
One thing management has provided is a mission: to make our employer, the central government, look good.
That’s why “Your first window on China” always affords a sunny view. When a British tourist was murdered near the Great Wall, CCTV-9 knew nothing about it. When the police shut down all the Internet cafes in Beijing, our coverage never questioned the party line that it was for safety reasons. When Falun-Gong-hunting cops raided my hostel one winter midnight, putting dozens of foreign backpackers and workaday Chinese out on the street without a moment’s notice, CCTV-9 staffers were amused and sympathetic, but there was no coverage. When a group of North Koreans made a dramatic break into the Spanish embassy in Beijing that was played repeatedly on CNN, you never heard a word from us.
I went down to the Spanish embassy that afternoon in March 2002 and found Beijing’s small community of real journalists. Reuters, CNN, Hong Kong’s Phoenix, the BBC – everyone was there except “Your first window on China.”
When an enterprising intern who also worked as a translator and interpreter wanted to do an exposé on China’s woefully unsupervised translation and interpretation business, she was told to forget it. “Why would you want foreigners to know about this problem?” demanded those in charge. The irony seems lost on them that this method of making China look good is simply exposing the country as a joke.
So they’re especially stone-faced when someone within the ranks refuses to deliver the punch line. We had a business reporter exceptional by any standards who kept implicitly asking: “But what is China reforming from? Never mind all the self-praise for digging ourselves out; how did we get into this hole in the first place?”
When she finally quit CCTV-9 in frustration to work for a renowned global news service, an executive producer sat her down and threatened to personally ruin her career by informing every official and person of consequence whom she would ever need as a source that she was untrustworthy and shouldn’t be touched. When she wasn’t moved, she got a star’s sendoff. Several high-ranking executives wrote slurs for her personnel file and then made her pay a full year’s salary.
But it’s natural that CCTV-9 would want her under their wing instead of someone else’s. They study the foreign press, and they know what happens when journalists go legit.
“Influence on the rise—China’s military,” Ellis Joffe, 10/09/02.
“Annan: China Must Curb AIDS Spread,” Martin Fackler, 10/10/02.
“Tiananmen ‘Black Hand’ Chen’s 13-Yr Sentence Ends,” 10/10/02.
“Liberties in Doubt: Hong Kong,” Mike Jendrzejczyk, 10/11/02.
“China’s Changing of the Guard: Another murky leadership transition leaves the world guessing,” Melinda Liu and William Dobson, 10/12/02.
“In China, flood of fake diplomas,” Ted Plafker, 10/15/02. These entries appear in a weekly survey dated Oct. 15, 2002 of China coverage in the foreign press. It circulates among the executive producers at CCTV-9 and probably originates in the Foreign Ministry. The survey is comprehensive and includes neutral-toned articles on business, sports and culture.
No one to whom I showed this survey knew exactly how it was used at CCTV-9, but it’s evident that management is kept in the loop of the state’s monitoring of foreign journalism. Not one of these stories was ever covered by CCTV-9. When we want a lively domestic tidbit to lead a broadcast, here’s what we go with:
“Premier Zhu went to visit an organic farm in Salzburg, some 140 miles west of Vienna. The farm has an area of 38 acres, half grassland and half forest. Products made of sheep’s milk are the main industry on the farm.”
Footnote: 1. Yes, you read that right, “the Three Represents.” I won’t trouble you with an explanation of this body of thought, but I will tell you the Chinese Communist Party has pronounced it a breakthrough in Marxist ideology, which guarantees it a spot in China’s political catechism - see also the One Country-Two Systems policy, the Three Antis, the Three Direct Links, the Four Cleanups, the Five Antis, the Five Red Categories, the Five Black Categories, the stinking ninth category, the Ten Major Relationships, the Sixty Points on Working Methods, etc.
Part 2 in the "China's Propaganda Machine" Series. To read part 1 click here
It’s no surprise that our writers don’t know what a story is. There are very few Chinese over the age of 30 who do, thanks to China’s four-decade intellectual retreat after 1949.
Most of our writers are in their 20s and have no journalistic education or experience. But CCTV-9 offers no training for new hirees or interns and no rewards for initiative or self-development. Incoming Chinese staffers pass an English test that might consist of reading three sentences out loud, which starts them off as deskbound writers. From there, they can move up to directing, anchoring or field reporting. The third and final rung is the position of producer/censor.
Communist Party membership, highly coveted and hard-won, is helpful for the first two rungs, essential for the third. The executive tier is a sort of Mount Olympus populated by entrenched party members who have attained their status through sheer longevity.
The "Olympians" are our greatest obstacle to change, according to a consultant I spoke to who has been advising CCTV-9 on competing in the global media market. With virtually no experience as correspondents, no presence in the newsroom and no production duties despite their “Producer” titles, they provide no accumulated experience and no example of professional advancement. They have no standing in the community as professionals or achievers and no status outside CCTV-9.
They function mainly as two-way filters, tediously reviewing tape after tape of every broadcast and attending endless meetings at which they take directions from higher officials to pass down to newsroom staff.
It is said that they hate their jobs. One of them sadly remarked at the time the business writer departed that no global news organization ever came after him; he’d be lost in a real newsroom.
As prominent as these people are in the hierarchy, they’re devoid of basic management skills. They’ve established no system to reward quality, no program to recruit or cultivate talent, no channels to air gripes or disseminate information, and no chinks in the language barrier between techies and editorial types.
As for shaping a team, forget it. There are no regular meetings, with two exceptions, which I’ll get to. When I was first hired, I asked the informally elected leader of the Foreign Experts why our group, at least, didn’t meet once a month. He explained that management would view this as “organizing,” something labor is forbidden to do in a country whose political philosophy is grounded in workers’ rights. So story consults, brainstorming sessions, editorial reviews, and God knows what else goes on in a real news organization, are nonexistent.
Another gap in this picture is our audience. CCTV-9 has created no community of producers and consumers. I’ve stumbled across feedback (critical) in the Chinese and the Western press, but it was never discussed.
Because we get a free ride from the state, we don’t bother with money issues such as advertising revenue and marketing surveys. And because we haven’t done our homework in this regard, we function under the vague assumption that most of our viewers are foreigners living in China and Chinese who want to improve their English. Those outside China are assumed to be “affluent and educated,” because after all they have satellite television.
Where Ignorance Is Bliss
With the stakes so limited and advancement so unrelated to performance, ignorance and incompetence are not issues at CCTV-9. When one asks Chinese staff to clarify an ambiguous point in a story, the immediate and final response is typically, “I don’t know.”
We don’t do follow-up. We don’t do phone calls. We don’t keep card files or directories of business or political leaders. We don’t subscribe to any online information services except the wires. There’s a buggy database of our news scripts that goes back a few months and a room where tapes of the current year’s evening broadcasts are stored, but no searchable catalog, print or electronic, of our footage.
Lacking contacts, a reference library or an internal database, we turn to the Internet when we need answers. Because we don’t have the technology to bypass the state’s Internet censorship, we sometimes simply have to get by without answers.
It’s really too bad the Voice of America’s Web site is blocked, because we have no guide for foreign pronunciations except the BBC and CNN broadcasts we watch in the newsroom. (I consider our access to these shows one of the job’s best perqs, because it is an intellectual luxury in China that barely exists outside of five-star hotels and pricey apartments traditionally occupied by foreigners.)
Our business and financial coverage is especially blind. Almost no one who works on our “Biz China” has any notable expertise in business or economics.
I attempt to copyedit an item that refers to Chinese rural land ownership, which puzzles me. “Is rural land ownership legal in China?” I ask the writer. She stares at me in bewilderment. I repeat the question in increasingly simple iterations, and her answer is still a frightened stare. I don’t know if it’s because this 19-year-old business writer doesn’t know the answer to the question or because she doesn’t know what “land ownership” is.
In the end, the censor ends the confusion by ordering me to strike out the sentence. I’m confronted with an item on auction house scandals that concludes, “Christie’s escaped by being the first to give crucial evidence.” I want only to know what Christie’s escaped: indictment, prosecution, fines? When I query the writer, she responds in some confusion: “It says Christie escaped. He fled the country.” I consult her wire copy and get the facts. I’m too sober an individual to let the anchor say on the air, “Sotheby’s was fined, but Christie’s fled the country.”
Footnote 2: This situation changed a little during the Iraq war, when more people were tuned in and management realized we’d better improve our image. One day an executive producer dashed breathlessly into the newsroom and announced that we couldn’t use the word “coalition” anymore in reference to the British, Australian and U.S. forces. He had just gotten off the phone with “a foreigner” - credentials, profession and native language all unasked - who complained that “coalition” connoted to him, personally, a large number of countries, and that “allies” was the preferable term. That’s all it took to set a new editorial policy for our Iraq war coverage.
Part 3 in the "China's Propaganda Machine" Series. To read Part 1 click here. To read Part 2, click here.
There are a few things CCTV-9 staffers do need to know. These are imparted once a week at a meeting headed by an executive producer and attended by all Chinese staff who are not on duty in the newsroom. Foreign Experts are excluded.
This is where the mission of making China look good is hammered in, where Dos and Don’ts are handed down from realms beyond, where the staff is told what to cover and what to cover up. It’s a straight lecture session, no Q&A, no suggestions sought.
One Chinese writer surmised to me that it’s a repeat of what the leader of the meeting himself would have gone through earlier at the hands of higher officials, who in turn had it from even higher officials, and so forth. The overall message driven in week after week is that because we are broadcasting to foreigners, there is only so much propaganda we can get away with. Therefore, we should discuss certain of China’s problems and, crucially, show that China is handling them just fine.
That’s how a mass poisoning case in Nanjing turns out to be all about the party’s conscientiousness. “Authorities are doing all they can,” we lead, “to save the food-poison victims.”
“Upon learning of the incident,” goes a follow-up story, “leaders of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council demanded the Jiangsu Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China and the provincial government do what they can to save the others. The victims have been sent to 10 hospitals in Nanjing, where over 500 high-quality medical specialists are taking care of them.”
The story does not reveal that 42 people died.
There’s another meeting, less regular, for the Communist Party division at CCTV-9. This is attended by those staffers who are party members, and sees action much more dire. The Dos and Don’ts are threats. Staff who have made mistakes are fined or otherwise punished. An especially bad slip-up and the party can get you fired. The most serious punishment of all is expulsion from the party, which means not only the loss of your job, but the loss of your career and personal ruin.
There were certainly no slip-ups during the second week of November 2002, when the Chinese Communist Party held its once-every-five-years National Party Congress, or NPC. This is the Chinese equivalent of electing a pope, marrying off the Prince of Wales or sending a manned mission to Mars.
You might remember the NPC as the week-long event that brought about the most recent leadership change in China, exceptional for its bloodlessness and unexceptional for its secrecy. Chances are good that you don’t remember it at all; Western coverage mostly consisted of journalists standing around Tiananmen Square telling a camera, “We don’t really know what’s happening inside.”
It’s therefore a tad difficult to explain the urgency and obsessiveness that set the Chinese media ablaze and sent CCTV-9’s writers, censors, producers and directors scurrying in all directions, hastening to change a word here or a comma there, imperiously issuing orders, and flying to TV sets with the volume turned up to the maximum to absorb every wooden minute of our coverage.
You would have thought it was a real newsroom, except that the propaganda reached such heights of crassness that it provoked some minor revolts among the Foreign Experts and served as the catalyst for my finally sitting down to write all this.
We’re talking about an authoritarian government with a legacy of tens of millions of murders that claims it has always served the best interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people; it will later censor SARS coverage after supposedly coming clean about its cover-up and establishing information networks on the disease.
Now, during the NPC, it is anointing its new elite, with the commander-in-chief of the Tiananmen Square massacre in the field of candidates and an unspecified intention to drag 1.2 billion people headlong into its latest political experiment. Imagine the kind of press coverage it’s demanding.
While the world was counting down to war in Iraq, the entire first block — not just the first story, but the first block — of every CCTV-9 broadcast was dedicated to the “profound historical significance,” the “major event not only for China but for the rest of the world,” the “significant landmark,” that was the 16th National Party Congress of the Communist Party of China.
What was so pressing and momentous? What was the story that so desperately needed to be told? Well, that “Delegates interviewed all spoke highly of Jiang Zemin’s Three Represents thought,” that “Serving the people wholeheartedly is the aim of the Communist Party of China,” that Chinese abroad “noted that as China’s ruling party, the Chinese Communist Party is praiseworthy for its ceaseless efforts to keep the country stable and prosperous,” and that “It was a proud moment for many overseas Chinese when President Jiang Zemin stepped onto the podium and began to deliver his report at the opening session of the CPC National Congress. The event kept them glued to their screens, their hearts beating in time with their motherland’s.”
If you’re not sold on the significance of these carryings-on then you’re in an insignificant minority, as CCTV-9 reported. “The CPC National Congress received congratulatory messages from world leaders including the Ukrainian President and the prime minister of the Cook Islands, as well as the People’s Party of Cambodia, the Labour Party of New Zealand, and other major political parties in various countries around the world.” Beyond all, “It was an open discussion of Jiang Zemin’s report to world’s media and delegates spoke open-mindedly and freely.”
Does management miss the unintended humor here? Do they share none of the feelings of the Chinese staff who write this stuff?
I assisted a Chinese writer in creating one of our regular digests of foreign coverage of the NPC, a cherry-picking exercise meant to show that the outside world was trumpeting its admiration for these obscure and undemocratic proceedings. It was something like the old joke about movie ads—you know, Critic X says, “It was a five-star snooze” and the ad says, “Five stars from Critic X!!!” The writer wilted as we surveyed our Google hits. Every reputable news service centered on the one topic we were forbidden to discuss in any of our NPC coverage, the leadership change. She knew no one would be convinced when she wrote:
Associated Press gave a vivid description of the venue of the congress.
The Washington Post said Jiang Zemin opened the congress by cementing the party’s shift away from China’s dispossessed, which are disappearing in China, towards its growing middle class.
Another influential US newspaper, the New York Times, said the new party congress will set a political and economic direction for China in the years to come.
Hard Core, Soft Soap
CCTV-9 is gonzo journalism compared to what they do at the Chinese-language news channel, CCTV-1. Their stuff is meant for domestic consumption, and it’s hard-core. None of this slipping in a few of China’s problems to sop a savvy foreign audience. Every word, every pause, every comma is carved in stone. Doesn’t matter if it’s accurate or complete or even logical.
Unfortunately, because it’s 100 percent safe, a lot of CCTV-1 content winds up in the English newsroom. We’re ordered to translate and air it, using the same video and natural sound. It’s only the Foreign Experts, trying to polish this stuff into acceptable news copy, who are irked that names and sources are missing or the rationales for new regulations aren’t given. Statistics in particular are thrown about like confetti with no meaning or attribution.
And with China’s population of 1.2 billion, you can get some pretty good raw numbers - quantity of cell phone users, amount of foreign direct investment - but it’s always up to us at CCTV-9 to do the math if we want to set the numbers in a meaningful context. Even if we try to follow up, the organization lets us down. Although we’re obligated to use CCTV-1 content, we can’t get their reporters to return a phone call or fill in their swiss-cheese stories even though they’re just six floors below us.
To worsen matters, CCTV gives all its press passes to CCTV-1, so we have to rely entirely on their coverage of such major events as a visit from President Bush or a ministerial-level news conference.
The exception is, say, the August 2002 visit from UN High Commissioner of Human Rights Mary Robinson; CCTV-9 was there to elaborate on the claim that she was “satisfied” with China’s human rights record (for the opposite view see any western coverage of the visit), but CCTV-1 wasn’t there at all and never uttered a word about the visit. Chinese viewers aren’t to be told that human rights is even an issue in their country.

Joan Maltese of San Diego worked for China Central Television. Next in the series: China controls the people by keeping them in ignorance.

这个老美在CCTV-9工作了一年多,发表了一些内部看法... 其实谁都知道, 中央台就是一个愚民政策的宣传机器...
一个美国人在中国中央电视台工作的感受--访前CCTV英语频道外籍专家琼·玛尔提丝 （按：琼·玛尔提丝 Joan Maltese 女士2002年至2003年在中国中央电视台为英语九频道工作了一年半时间。
在隒CCTV的工作合同期满之前，她记录、撰写了自己在那里工作的经历和感受。返回美国后不久，原文（英文）在美国Newsmax新闻网发表。据玛尔提丝本人介绍，文章发表后引起中央电视台英语频道的关注和有关负责人的暴怒。介绍玛尔提丝女士到那里工作的人也受到了严厉指责。本采访是此一前提下做的。本采访有所删节。采访中提及的玛尔提丝的那篇文章，有兴趣的读者可登陆Newsmax.com网站查找阅读。）
北明（以下简称 “明”）：您知道吗？你对自己在CCTV工作经历的描述和对在那里所见所闻的评价，听上去像是一个职业记者，一个媒体专业人士。我的意思是说，虽然您没有受过新闻专业的训练和教育，但是您在做那些您刚才所提及的有关新闻职业知识的调查与学习前，就?一种非正常的新闻作业环境感到不舒服，是吗？
琼．玛尔提丝（以下简称“琼”）：是的。我一直就知道我们基本上……我们没有遵守新闻记者的真正的，真正的使命。我总是知道这一点，从一开始我就知道，因为……
明：您自然而然就知道这一点？
琼：啊，是的。因为那里有新闻检查员，就坐在我们的新闻部办公室，是政府的新闻检察员。而且有时候我们写的最初的新闻稿件被改了。我完全知道。
明：您完全知道。不过您注意到吗？如果是中国人，甚至是中国新闻学院受过专业教育的中国人，他们在那种情况下也许根本不会感到有什麽地方不对头。
琼：啊，也许是的。我想是的。事实上他们觉得做政府让他们做的事，不报导真相而试图让中国看起来不错，是十分自然的事情。
明：所以您的感受跟在那里工作的中国人有根本的不同。
琼：是的。
明：您知道原因吗？
琼：啊，当然，你知道，我已经习惯于阅读西方媒体的新闻报导，我对这些媒体有一定的期待。我的意思是说，我的期待是，媒体是对所有人开放的，它不能站在某个立场，专门对政府作出回应。不仅不对政府作出回应，而且与政府是竞争关系，矛盾的关系。不光是站在政府一边，做政府让它们做的事情。所以，我对媒体的期待当然是完全不同的。很多我的中国朋友告诉我，他们成长期间，甚至当他们在语言学校里的时候，就被告知不能相信外国人，不要相信外国媒体，外国媒体在中国问题上撒谎。所以他们在开始参加工作的时候已经认为中国政府才讲真话，外国媒体不能信任，外国人也不能信任。
明：当您了解了这种情况时，您什麽感受？
琼：你知道，因?中国有12亿人。我全部所能做的就是希望某一天某些真相之光显露。我的工作可以改变一点这样的现实。那是我写出我的经历的原因之一。因为我工作是为这样一个……我是说我工作了18个月，真正是为这个宣传机器工作。这是一个不名誉的机器。就是这是原因，我决定我应该讲出真相。是的。我持续地希望，中国人对他们在青少年时期所接受的不高尚的教育变得越来越有怀疑性，对政府所告诉他们的话有越来越有多的质疑。
明：您知道有一些中国媒体专家，包括美国大学的或者媒体的专家，批评美国媒体。
琼：是的，是的。
明：他们说，美国的媒体在撒谎方面跟中国的一样：你们也不说真话，不报导真实的消息。但是这些人当中的美国专家并不真的了解中国媒体的表现。在您的经验当中，比较两方面的媒体，在报导真实方面，您有什麽评价？
琼：在这方面，自动地，当然所有的媒体机构都有人支援，都发表各自不同的见解、观点。但事实是，至少在西方媒体中有很多声音、很多见解、很多计划。你可以得到很多不同的故事，从而自己找到真实的资讯。更重要的是，在许多情况下，您可以自己去到私家资讯中心来源去找到资讯，找到，啊……政府在网上发布的政策、政策的声明，你不必要等到媒体把政府说了什麽这类资讯转达给你。你可以自己去找。而且，你有要求媒体报导真实情况的完全自由。你可以面对媒体，对他指出：你撒谎。诸如此类。在中国你就不能这麽做。因为媒体是，基本上是政府的代理。如果你到中国媒体去指称他们：你撒谎，你为政府歌功颂德，你立刻就有麻烦。另外就是，那里只有一个，只有一个声音。中国只有一个官方的声音。你得不到多重的观点，你的不到不同的多样的观点，那只有一个观点。所以中国人没有机会了解别人人怎麽说，别的可能的访谈是什麽样的故事。
明：比较中国政府对媒体的控制----事实上政府开办、媒体管理---您认为是否有可能，有任何办法，美国政府可以那样控制媒体？因?我们知道，美国政府经常遭受媒体的攻击。
琼：我觉得美国政府唯一可以控制媒体的办法是，不告诉媒体有关他们的消息。我觉得那是他们可以控制媒体的最好的办法。虽然如此，一些记者会寻找途径，找到那些愿意泄露资讯的人。所以美国政府最有希望的控制媒体的办法就是不让资讯泄露给它们。基本上我不认为政府可以真正地控制新闻。任何时候，比方说，如果美国领导人打电话媒体组织，给一个报导施加压力说，我不喜欢这个新闻报导。立刻，这事本身就会被报导出来。我是说，如果有人给CNN说：停止报导这个事情。 CNN就会报导说，咳，今天有打电话给我们要求我们停止这个报导。所以，美国政府没有多少机会控制媒体。我想，一个证明就是事实上，许多美国政府的官员经常抱怨媒体，抱怨它们的报导不真实。你知道，如果这种情况总是发生，总是抱怨它们报导不真实，那麽很明显，美国的媒体是不受控制的。
明：我记得美国打阿富汉的时候，布希对CNN播放了当时发现的本拉登的一个讲话不满，认为是替恐怖份子做了宣传。所以布希接受CNN访问时，希望CNN访问他的时间在长一些，以便他表达的清楚些，但是CNN说：不。你的时间到了，就这麽长。
琼：是啊。是啊
明：别说控制媒体了，你连被采访的时间有多长都控制不了。
琼：当然。你能不能想象，胡锦涛如果想要被采访，噢，上帝，CCTV1或者CCTV9必定放下所有它们手中的工作，落实这个采访。而且，在采访播出前，他将看到要播出的所有内容。所以是的是的。我是说，事情不像那样。
明：布希还抱怨说，CNN帮了本来登的忙，帮助他宣传他的恐怖思想，甚至那个讲话是个秘密战斗动员令也说不定，怎麽能够在战争期间，在这样的非常时期播放。但是CNN才不管这一套。照播。
琼：对对。是的是的。
明：琼，请告诉我，在您?CCTV9工作的时候，您跟那里工作人员的新闻价值观念完全不同，工作态度和方式也会表现在您的工作中，这种情况下，您怎麽跟您的同事打交道？
琼：啊，你知道有些事情，对于我对一些事情的观点，我们之间在许多无言的一致的见解，默契。人们，每个人都知道我们必须怎麽做。每个人都知道我们应该怎麽做。外国人憎恨的事情，中国人，我想大部分时间里是听天由命，他们就是顺从。有时候，私下里，我们聊起来，我们会提起某某人愚蠢，有时候有的中国记者会感到非常沮丧，但是大部分时间里，由于我们都知道我们在这里是生为一种宣传品，因为我们对此有共识，我们对现状没有太多的抱怨。现在，我们确实经常不断会有对政治的争论，比方中国共产党好还是不好，中国的对外政策是否正确这类话题的争论，这是一种每天生活中都会发生的争论，但是对于我们实际上做的事情，我是说，虽然我们外国人知道来这里就是为了宣传而写，中国人也知道在这里是为宣传而写，这确是一个接受的事实。这是一个不情愿地接受的事实。
明：如果他们没有发现您的文章，或者如何您没有发您你的文章，您认?您可以或者愿意回到CCTV去工作吗？
琼：啊，我不会回去为CCTV工作。我愿意为一个真正高尚的、积极寻求调查事实真相的媒体工作，而不是去?一个宣传机器工作。我愿意，我愿意回到中国去，我愿意在中国为CNN、或者美联社、或者路透社工作。我愿意味香港的凤凰、或者翡翠电视台工作。但是我不会回去为CCTV工作。因为我觉得我在那里工作了18 个月，我尽可能了解了那里的情况，那里的工作非常没有生气，而且对我来说也没有任何提升的机会。所以我不会回去。
明：您对我的中国听?或者你的在大陆的中国朋友还有什麽要补充的？
琼：有一件事我想说：我的这些谈话不是反对中国或者中国人民。我谈的是一些我希望中国人知道但他们不知道的事情。我觉得真的很难过，中国人经常需要到外国人那里才能知道他们自己的国家发生了什麽。而且我知道很多有良知的人、善良的人、工作努力的人，希望了解真实的情况，希望改善他们的生活，想要改变他们的国家，愿意成为美国人的朋友。我的文章是为这些人写的。我真诚地希望中国人，尤其是那些?自由而抗争、为了解真实而抗争的中国人，能够了解我的这篇文章的内容，了解这个采访的内容，感到某种鼓舞。能了解到，这里有人在为他们讲真话。而且，愿意就他们国家所发生的事情跟他们沟通情况，分享资讯。
明：谢谢您，琼。