The State of Journalism in China
The Communist Party has long striven to control freedom of speech in China. Websites from around the world are blocked. Major social media cannot be accessed, and advanced software is used to delete “sensitive” entries from the Internet. Domestic journalists who step over the invisible line of what’s permissible face being fired or even arrested, while foreign journalists face various forms of government intimidation. How reporters are trying to work around China's resurgent censorship, 25 years after Tiananmen.
For the cover of the new issue of Nieman Reports, we wanted to say something intriguing about the state of journalism in China. Many of the stories in the cover package tackle the issue of what cannot be published in China so Nieman Reports design director Stacy Sweat mocked up a couple covers with taboo images.
In a visual nod to censorship, a Czech visual artist removed the tanks from the iconic photograph of Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. Yet, when we showed the cover around the office, it was clear that the manipulated image did not have an immediate connection to the original. The better option was to run them side by side on the opening spread of the cover story.We entertained more ideas but the one that stuck was a cup of instant noodle soup. The name of this popular Chinese brand bore a close resemblance to the name of a disgraced Chinese leader. To get around a ban on mentioning the leader’s name on social media, netizens substituted the noodle brand. We then faced the challenge of finding a cover-worthy image of the packaging. After deploying colleagues in China and Taiwan, we ended up finding the product a bit closer to home—at an Asian grocery store in Boston.
