Jianyu Hou Freelance writer based in Cleveland
Before moving to the U.S, I worked for a municipal Chinese government for two years, responsible for writing and updating news for its website. After I witnessed too many dirty dealings, I resigned and accepted an offer from a news agency mainly focusing on disclosing the corrupt crimes of the top level Chinese political leaders.
Working in the local government, I know how hard it is to tell the truth to the public. My superiors at the government suggested I cover the positive side of the government when they felt my dissatisfaction with the corrupt Chinese government officials between the lines of my reports. They revised my policy analysis with red pens in front of me, deleting paragraphs and adding the flattering words that exaggerated the government’s “contribution” to the society, while in private they embezzled the taxpayers’ money and squandered it on personal use. The local media could only cover the information the government released or favored. Finally, I couldn’t gloss over their real faces any more.
In the news agency, I was glad I could disclose and analyze the corrupt related issues caused by the weaknesses of the political system.
Some of my previous colleagues were former government officials too, holding the same belief as mine. We publicized some major cases of the top Chinese political leaders, including Xihai Bo, Yongkang Zhou, Caihou Xu, Junshan Gu ahead of other media. The relatively free environment allowed us to reveal more shocking facts, but at the same time, we faced the invisible pressure from the Chinese central government that might threaten our freedom of speech.
As we criticized the strict government control, the propaganda machine of America made us, the Chinese journalists, as well as most Chinese, believe that freedom of speech in America was well-protected by the US Constitution. We were told that there was no such governmental institution interfering with the freedom of expressing different political stances.
We were totally wrong.
During the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, we’ve seen the hidden rules of American mainstream media, how they’ve ignored Hillary Clinton’s serious scandals with strong evidence and have been picky about the improper words Donald Trump said but didn’t do. I’m not surprised, because the Americans I met told me their distrust of the mainstream media that actually is controlled by the Democratic Party and financially supported by Wall Street big companies and theoretically endorsed by the left-wing college scholars.
Besides, education has shaped the minds of the journalism major students, the prominent human resource for the mainstream media. A Chinese student at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism published her story on College Daily that her American classmates shared anti-Trump videos and articles on social media without care of being criticized, while she as a Trump supporter kept silent to prevent conflicts with other students. In another class, the guest speaker was the communication manager of Bill Clinton’s campaign. ALL of the professors at the School of Journalism supported Hillary, condescendingly saying that any educated and rational person would support her. She concluded that the so-called democracy and freedom of speech in American mainstream media was a joke at the end of her article.
Editors have the super power to change the submissions’ political stance and decide what to publish. Several years ago, I got my article published on an American mainstream magazine, but found that the Harvard graduated editor almost rewrote it to its opposite stance as he favored. I complained about it in front of other American journalists, being told that’s so common in American journalism profession–if you don’t listen to the editors, your contract will be over.
Although there is no such a governmental institution that controls the media opinion, the establishments influence the media in other ways. Nonprofit organization is one of them.
Media Matters for America (MMfA), with the mission of “comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media”, and its conservative counterpart of Media Research Center with the mission of “prove—through sound scientific research—that liberal bias in the media does exist and undermines traditional American values” play the roles of counter balancing the media power of the other Party. MMfA has a close relationship with the Obama White House and accepts money from the rich elites like George Soros who donated $1 million to MMfA in October 2010 seeking to influence public opinion.
Luckily, there are is lot of American independent media doubting the voice of the mainstream, but with less visibility. On the contrary, the independent media in China face the risk of being censored by the government and is still a politically sensitive issue.
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