“The FCCC is dismayed that conditions for independent reporting in China during the Winter Games continued to fall short of international standards,” it said in a statement Monday. Official bodies “regularly intervened” – a symptom of the difficult working conditions in China. After the conclusion of the Olympics, the club reported repeated bans and obstacles for foreign reporters to report from outside the Olympic venues. A Dutch television journalist was dragged away from the camera during a live broadcast, although the police had previously assigned him exactly this position for his report. Security officials also interrupted interviews or prevented film crews from taking pictures in public places.
Some correspondents have been the target of online attacks, in which state media and Chinese diplomats have also participated, because of their Olympic reports. “The FCCC is disappointed that China – contrary to the Olympic spirit – has tightened conditions for foreign media.” The club called on China’s authorities to allow journalists to plan and conduct their own interviews without risk of state interference and to report freely in public places.
While the journalists who traveled there, like all Olympic participants, had to work in a closed bubble and without contact to the country and its people, the majority of the correspondents who were permanently accredited in China moved outside. As recently as January, the FCCC had complained about “unprecedented hurdles” in reporting from China. In an annual survey, 99 percent of the members found that the working conditions did not correspond to international standards.
Source: Nachrichten
