北京电视台在这件事上也不光彩，派个无证记者揣个摄像机偷拍，敲门后没人开，就自己推开门走进去了，而且别墅外的摄像头拍到的是记者被打了几个巴掌而已，电视台把视频经过剪辑制作后播出，还子虚乌有地说把记者打吐了，从楼梯上滚下来，骨折脑震荡什么的，让人不禁怀疑，电视台是拿群众当白痴弱智加以蒙骗吗？大家有手有眼，网络上什么看不到？
主流媒体对一个民间相声演员滥用“私刑”，封杀，下架其音像制品，用假视频侮蔑，连央视都在新闻里面不点名地痛批他，郭德刚怎么了？打人的是他徒弟，郭本人并不住那里，他只不过在博客上骂了一些无良的记者和不以事实说话的电视台，媒体就往死里玩别人。最近其博客也被屏蔽，百度郭德纲贴吧回帖要打复杂的中国字当验证码（其他人的贴吧都是用字母＆数字），有这么严重吗？媒体的疯狂暴力程度让人极度反感。
看看btv公布的录像和郭提供的录像比较比较就知道了。女记者一边答应着不拍照一边坚持着偷拍，还把专门剪辑过的录像先抛出来影响舆论，这是中国共产党的一贯做法。
这次btv的做法，很明显的就是公器私用，私仇公报，比郭徒弟打人的性质更加严重，ccav也加入进来，更加说明某些媒体已经完全偏离媒体应当恪守的道德底线，不论所谓正义与道德，成为某利益集团指挥下的鹰犬，叫咬谁就咬谁，叫宣传谁就宣传谁，这样的媒体，早就在观众中失去信任感。
中国的媒体到底在干啥呢？一边搞审查，一边拿红包。
原文：Dark Journalism
译文：福布斯：黑暗的中国新闻界
作者：Gady A. Epstein
发表时间：2010年7月21日
译者：Große Fuge
校对：@xiaomi2020
审查制度不是中国新闻报导的唯一问题。另一个是通行的腐败。
周建国（音）和一个同事打着一份中国某日报的旗号，开了几个小时的车，到达北京西南边的中国腹地：产煤大省山西省静乐县的丛山之中，调查一起发生在5月31日周末造成两人死亡的煤矿事故。报导这一事件是需要胆量的。 在漫长的一天快要结束的时候，他们被告知要爬上破旧的砖混政府大楼的楼梯，去和一名县里的主管安全生产的官员面谈。
但是到这里这篇新闻报导就偃旗息鼓了。关于这一事故的报导出现没有出现在《山西法制报》上，或者任何的新闻媒体上。报社否认曾雇佣过任何叫“周建国”的人。周和他的同事拒绝《福布斯》的记者旁听他们和安全生产官员的会面。当这场十分钟的会面结束的时候，两名男性和一名被称为“李主任”的人拒绝透露他们讨论了什么。
这一简短的会面中究竟发生了什么，可以让一场致命的矿难神奇地消失？“黑暗的新闻界，”我们的当地向导说。我们只知道他叫“老赵”，自称是个生意人，也是记者，他给我们安排了与那两名记者的会面。在走进李主任的办公室之前，两个年轻人和老赵凑在一起，老赵直白地解释了为什么《福布斯》的记者不能参与会谈。有外国人在场，“李不可能付钱给他们。”
难道奥运年不应该预示着中国新闻界的正直新时代的到来吗？是，也不是。四川地震让一些勇敢的中国记者无视审查制度，追寻关于建筑标准的残酷真相。但是政府的干涉不是唯一一个阻碍了真相被曝光的因素。在中国黑暗的新闻界，无数的小型灾难照例都被隐瞒了。记者们以赛跑的速度到达煤矿事故现场不是为了调查，而是为了收“封口费”。媒体专家和一些中国记者们说，矿难死的人越多，封口费越丰厚，尤其对那些有着国家或者省级新闻机构身份的记者更是如此。
收受贿赂是蔓延在中国新闻界的“现金文化”的一部分，从各种公司新闻发布会上收受礼品的记者，到销售晚间新闻中的黄金时段的制播人，再到以曝光威胁进行敲诈的记者。跟政府审查不同，腐败从内部队伍中吞噬了本来就饱受批评的职业道德。利益和金钱的交换随处可见，以至于有良心的记者要冒着被同事鄙视的风险，就像某个诚实的警察在腐败的警察局中的情形。
“那些从来没收过红包的记者将很难与同事们相处，”位于北京的中国青年政治学院新闻传播学院院长展江（音）说。“其他记者会把他看成是敌人，而其他人会想，这些记者很危险，他们可能会报导我们。”
老牌调查记者王克勤的确举报了他们，王也为此付出了代价。应景的是，他犯下的“罪”正是因为他调查了一名堕落的同行，兰成长。
兰被山西煤老板雇佣的流氓打死，最开始他的死亡以“一名记者在履行职责的时候被谋杀”当做新闻头条被报导。但是也有媒体报道了另一个版本，兰似乎是去那个煤矿敲诈老板。王克勤的深入调查发现兰终其一生都没写过一篇文章。
“兰成长是个黑记者，”王克勤说，“他不是为了新闻主义而殉职。”
王克勤全面的报导没让他在同行中受到拥戴，他说他只不过“触及了点皮毛”，担心更深入的报道会将他彻底逐出新闻界。
“大多数的中国记者生活工作在灰色地带，甚至是黑色地带。要是我揭出所有的事，我在中国就没法生存了，”王克勤说。今年，医生给他的建议是为了健康休养一段时间，他住在北京一个政府提供的普通公寓里，每月领着160美元的基本工资。（记者每发表一篇文章可以获得额外的酬劳。）他没有房子，也没有汽车。
“要是你看工资单，北京大多数记者的工资和我一样，但是为什么有的人可以买豪华汽车，住别墅呢？”王克勤问道。“因为他们用报道与官员、商人做交易。他们有很多灰色和黑色收入。”
因为有封口费，我们不可能知道所有未报道的事情。就是一名业内人士也很难评估新闻界的腐败程度。王克勤认为，中国80%的记者都是“灰色”的，这些人有时真正地履行职责，但是有时也写一些“软文”，或者悄悄地枪毙掉不讨好的文章，以此来收钱收礼，用广告合同的回扣来补充他们微薄的薪水。
王克勤猜测，平均6个记者中就有一个是那种行业中最坏的“黑色记者”，他们向企业主和官员进行敲诈。这包括一些装作是记者的骗子，他们炮制负面新闻、敲诈目标，也包括那些和不法分子勾结的记者，这些记者为不法分子提供保护，一年可以偷偷地赚上几百万美元。
2006年，《中国产经新闻》湖南分社的记者杨晓庆因向一名党委书记勒索而被判有罪。杨用一篇当局所称的“假报道”来敲诈他，报道的内容是该党委书记非法进行土地交易。据《中国青年报》报导，2002年，来自国家官方新闻机构新华社的两名记者收受金元宝，掩盖煤矿事故。
在这个已经把腐败当作“生意”常态的行业里，如此戏剧性的曝光很少见。事实上，腐败已经成为了深深嵌入中国新闻界的商业模式。过去的15年来，新增了数千种报纸杂志。它们全都必须自负盈亏，无法从政府得到任何经济资助，这就意味着从封面到封底，所有东西都可以卖，收入可怜的记者被允许利用他们的职位获得额外收入。中国的记者们说，有时候，新闻机构在偏远城市设立“分部”不是为了采集新闻，而是为了敛财。
“他们实质上运行的是商业编辑体制，”一位来自香港大学的中国媒体计划（China Media Project）的研究员，大卫·班德斯基（David Bandurski）说。他研究的是新闻界的阴暗面。“根本就没有新闻主义。”
记者有很多捞钱的途径。在企业新闻发布会上收现金“红包”已经是多年来的常规了，这也是记者们来参加这种会议的唯一原因（实际上，现金通常是放进考虑得更周到的白色信封，连同“推荐稿”一起装在媒体材料袋里）。这个公开的秘密是严歌苓的小说《不速之客》的故事背景。在严歌苓的小说里，主角扮作记者去参加企业新闻发布会，只为了拿红包。现实生活中，这种方式让普通记者一个月能多赚几百甚至几千美元。
根据目前的和过去的出版人的介绍，另一个公开的秘密是在以“烧钱”为行规的时尚杂志业，社论的位置可以卖到5000到25000美元一页，顶级杂志的封面的价格超过了10万美元，什么品牌都想在当月封面上展示：欧莱雅、路易威登、菲格拉慕。顶级商品的揭幕派对、礼品包、费用全免的欧洲游，所有这些都确保了新闻团队的无比顺从。
“这里有一火车的意外之财”，时尚杂志iLook的出版人洪晃说。在中国的市场经理“不用像其它普通的市场经理那样忧心忡忡，比如自己是否工作得出色，是不是做了足够的功课来获得更多的新闻，因为品牌商们真是给每个人塞钱求着报道他们。”
还有，就是所有的媒体空间中最诱人的一个，数千万人收看的晚上7点的中央电视台《新闻联播》。野心勃勃的下层官员梦想着在播放时能露一小脸，几秒钟也行，以提升他们在共产党中的资历。新闻传播学院的展院长也曾经是中央电视台的员工，他解释道：“各地官员和企业家最喜欢出现在7点钟的新闻联播里。我听说价格好像是几十万[元，或者超过4万美元，”展说，“各地官员很难出现在电视上。一旦他们出现了，比如说3秒钟，5秒钟，这对他们的仕途很有帮助，可以增加他们获得提升的机会，为了这个，他们付100万也愿意。”
CCTV否认自己在售卖《新闻联播》中的时段，也否认有任何腐败的记者。但是，它同新华社一起，代表了支撑腐败横行的中国新闻界的两大支柱：官方权力和最大的市场到达率。
亚洲其它国家也有腐败记者的问题。但是中国杂交的媒体体系制造出了一个威力强大的官方影响力和利润驱动的怪胎。当来自中国最高新闻机构的记者找到一名官员或者商人的时候，在这些记者背后不仅有市场力量，他们还有更加令人畏惧的东西——国家权力。
“媒体得到了强权的投资，因为媒体长期扮演着某种国家职能的角色，所以人们基本就在用政治资本来换取商业利益，”班德斯基说。“也是因商业和控制这两种角色之间的张力才真正创造出了腐败和虚假的乐园。”
一些中国新闻界的领导品牌，包括受人尊敬的商业杂志《财经》已经在试图建立起职业标准，宣言不收受红包。（《福布斯》杂志的授权中文版的主编莉迪亚陈说，我们禁止“甚至是以交通费的形式”得到的好处。）但是这种对腐败文化的公开挑战只是例外。
中国青年政治学院媒体研究系的副教授周泽甚至认为，“黑暗的新闻界”可以看成好事。他之前长期工作的单位，国家级报纸《法制日报》有时候甚至没有足够的经费来支付差旅费。从某个被委屈的家庭收钱报道一下他们的问题，这没什么。
“把问题扔下不管，不报道，或者拿钱然后报道问题，哪个更道德？”周说。
“对煤老板进行勒索有好处，因为‘它增加了煤老板的成本’”，周说。“那些煤老板也许会想，与其不得不面对这样没完没了的勒索，我还不如提升安全工作的条件。”
山西的一些腐败记者也这样将他们的行为合理化。一位向《福布斯》卖了一则记者从煤老板那里收贿赂的视频的记者说，他和同事们把他们对煤老板的行为称为“黑吃黑”。他解释说，“对那些黑心的煤老板，我们必须要出黑招来对付他们。”
但是这不是问责机制。这是中国的腐败经济的另一个层面，一个蓬勃发展的影子市场，许多年来，它已经损害了许多政府颁布的意图良好的法令。
在煤矿行业，去年的报道中有3,786名工人死亡（一些未知数量的死亡未计入官方的统计数据），这个影子市场不制止任何死亡事故，甚至将这些事故当成是经营成本的来源。
一旦煤矿出事，所有的记者都来了，媒体顾问根据来的媒体的级别给记者发不同的红包。CCTV也许能得到5万到10万[元，或者725到1450美元]，新华社的可以得到5万。对省级媒体，可能是3万，对那些小报，可能只有几千到两万。这个钱被称作“封口费”，也被称作“媒体公关费”。新华社则否认最近几年中它有任何腐败行为，它说如果发现有一个收了“封口费”的记者，就会把他开除。
这是个骗钱的好办法，因此也吸引了一大批中国媒体称为“假记者”的人。去年12月，《中国青年报》报导说，几个月前在山西，28名“假记者”因勒索被捕，收缴了1362张假记者证和工作证，关闭了45个非法的新闻机构分部。
尽管这些国家媒体报道暗示，那些假记者是骗子扮成，玷污了经过正式认可的中国记者的名声。但是实际上，一些记者告诉《福布斯》，他们常常是想要筹措现金的新闻机构招聘来的。
“很多小报，省级的非主流报纸，当它们在其它城市设立新的分部或者新办公室的时候，他们通常也设定了一个收入目标，”在山西分社的某记者说，因害怕报复，他选择匿名。“那些分社本身就只有一、两个人，根本不能实现目标，于是他们雇佣一些临时人员来帮他们完成目标，而这些人连写作都不会。”
“有人说，你今天是个水果摊老板，明天就能成为记者。”
当我们的山西之行中，这就很明显了。当我们在场的时候，我们的向导老赵没有去找封口费，但是他试图招收《福布斯》雇佣的司机来当他未来的记者。老赵告诉司机说，能写文章不是必要条件。
别以为这些事情就中国人自己知道，世界上的人，知道的多了。
http://www.forbes.com/global/2008/0721/018_print.html
Companies, People, Ideas
Dark Journalism
Gady A. Epstein 07.21.08
Censorship isn't the only thing wrong with Chinese reporting. The other one is a current of corruption.
Zhou Jianguo and a colleague, flying the flag of a Chinese daily newspaper, drove for hours into the mountains to get to a mine accident that killed two during the May 31 weekend in Jingle County in the coal-rich heartland of Shanxi Province, southwest of Beijing. It had taken enterprising journalism to get to this story. At the end of a long day they were set to march up the stairs of a dilapidated concrete government building to confront a county work-safety official about the accident.
But that's where the reporting stopped. No story about the accident ever appeared in the paper, the Shanxi Legal Daily, or in any other news outlet. The newspaper denies employing anyone named Zhou Jianguo. Zhou and his colleague refused to allow a FORBES reporter to observe the encounter with the work-safety official. When their ten-minute meeting was over, the two men and the official, a man addressed as Director Li, declined to say what they had discussed.
What happened in that brief encounter that could make a fatal mine accident magically disappear? "Black journalism," according to our guide on the scene, a man known only as Old Zhao, a self-described businessman and journalist who arranged our meeting with the pair of reporters. Before going up to Director Li's office, the two younger men had huddled with Old Zhao, who then bluntly explained the reason FORBES couldn't go into the meeting. With a foreigner present, "it would be impossible for Li to pay them."
Wasn't the year of the Olympics supposed to herald a new era of integrity in Chinese journalism? It has and it hasn't. The Sichuan earthquake inspired some courageous Chinese reporters to defy censors in pursuit of the ugly truth about building standards. But government interference isn't the only thing getting in the way of truth telling. In China's world of black journalism countless smaller tragedies routinely get shoved under the rug. Reporters race to the scene of coal mine accidents not to investigate them but to collect hush money. The more dead miners, the fatter the payoffs, especially for correspondents carrying the labels of leading national and provincial news outlets, say media experts and Chinese reporters.
These bribes are part of a widespread culture of checkbook journalism in China, from reporters taking handouts at corporate press events to broadcasters selling precious airtime on the evening news to reporters blackmailing targets with the threat of exposure. Unlike government censorship, this corruption eats at one of China's more beleaguered professions from within its ranks. The trading of favors for cash is so prevalent that, like the honest cop in a corrupt police unit, an ethical journalist risks the scorn of colleagues.
"For those journalists who never take red envelopes, it will be very hard for them to deal with their coworkers," says Zhan Jiang, journalism dean at China Youth University for Political Sciences in Beijing. "Other journalists will treat them like enemies, and other people would think that they are very dangerous, that 'They could report on us.'"
Veteran investigative journalist Wang Keqin did report on them and has paid a price. Fittingly enough, his crime was investigating a fallen member of his profession, Lan Chengzhang.
Lan was beaten to death at the hands of a Shanxi coal mine owner's hired thugs, initially making headlines as a journalist murdered in the line of duty. But then a different story emerged in press accounts, that Lan had likely gone to the mine to extort the owner. Wang investigated further and found that Lan had never written an article in his life.
"Lan Chengzhang was a black journalist," Wang says. "What he died for was not journalism."
Wang's thoroughly reported account did not make him popular with his colleagues, and he says he has only scratched the surface for fear of being booted from the profession.
"Most journalists in China live and work in the gray areas, or even the black areas. If I disclosed everything I would not be able to survive in China," Wang says. He is on a recommended health leave this year, living in a modest government-provided apartment in Beijing and drawing his base salary of $160 a month. (Journalists are paid an additional amount per article.) He does not own property or a car.
"If you look at the payroll, most of the journalists in Beijing make the same money as me, but why can they own luxury cars and live in villas?" Wang asks. "Because they use reports to make trades, trades with officials and businesspeople. They have a lot of gray and black income."
As it is impossible to know all that goes unreported because of a payoff, it is hard for even an insider to assess the full extent of corruption in journalism. Wang believes 80% in the Chinese media are "gray" journalists, who to varying degrees actually do their jobs sometimes but also accept money and gifts and kickbacks on advertising contracts, padding their meager paychecks by writing puff pieces or quietly killing unflattering ones.
Wang guesses that another one out of every six reporters make up the worst of the worst of his profession, "black" journalists who shake down business owners and officials for payoffs. This includes con men who pose as reporters and make up damaging articles with which to extort targets, and journalists who work in league with the lawbreakers they are supposed to cover, earning up to millions of dollars a year on the side.
Scattered news reports about some of these excesses have appeared over the years in the Chinese media. Last year four people posed as national television reporters to blackmail a coal mine inspection station in Shanxi Province for $40,000, according to Shanxi Daily. In 2006 Yang Xiaoqing, a Hunan bureau reporter for China Industry & Economics News, was convicted of blackmailing a party secretary to suppress what authorities called a "fake" report about his crooked land dealings. In 2002 two journalists from the nation's official news service, Xinhua News Agency, accepted gold ingots to cover up coal mine accidents, according to China Youth Daily.
Such dramatic exposés are rare in a profession that otherwise accepts corruption as a fact of doing business. In fact, corruption is embedded in the business model of Chinese journalism. Thousands of newspapers and magazines have opened for business in the last 15 years. Virtually all must support themselves financially without help from the government, and that means that everything is for sale, from the front page to the back, and that poorly paid journalists are allowed to leverage their positions for additional income. News outlets sometimes establish "bureaus" in far-flung cities not to collect news but to collect income, say Chinese journalists.
"They essentially run a business-editorial operation," says David Bandurski, a researcher at the University of Hong Kong's China Media Project who has studied the dark side of journalism. "There's no journalism at all."
Journalists have many ways to drum up extra cash. "Red envelopes" of cash at corporate press events have been standard-issue for years, the only reason journalists even bother to attend (in reality the cash is usually delivered in more discreet white envelopes placed in the press kits, along with a suggested text for publication). This open secret is the central premise of a novel, The Uninvited by Yan Geling, where the main character poses as a journalist just to pick up the envelopes at corporate events. In real life, rank-and-file reporters earn hundreds or even thousands of extra dollars a month this way.
Another open secret is the pay-for-play business format of fashion magazines, where, according to current and former publishers, editorial space can sell for $5,000 to $25,000 a page and the cover of top magazines can sell for more than $100,000 to whichever brand wants exposure that month: L'Oréal, Louis Vuitton, Ferragamo. That's on top of the product-unveiling parties, the gift bags and all-expenses-paid junkets to Europe, all of which ensure an exceedingly docile press corps.
"There's a huge gravy train," says Hong Huang, publisher of iLook fashion magazine. Marketing managers in China "don't have to worry like normal marketing managers worry, like did they do a good job, did they do enough to get covered, because they literally paid for everybody to cover them."
Then there is the most coveted media space of all, a spot on China Central Television's 7 p.m. newscast, viewed by tens of millions. Ambitious low-level officials dream of snatching a few seconds of airtime to boost their profiles in the Communist Party. The journalism dean Zhan, a former CCTV employee, explains: "Local officials and entrepreneurs would most prefer to be on the news broadcast on CCTV at 7. I've heard that's like several hundred thousand [yuan, or more than $40,000]," Zhan says. "It's very hard for local officials to get on TV. Once they are on TV for like three seconds, five seconds, it would be very helpful to their futures and could increase their chances of getting promoted, and for that they would happily pay a million."
CCTV denies selling any airtime on its newscasts or having any corrupt reporters. But, along with the Xinhua News Agency, it exemplifies the twin pillars of Chinese journalism that make the profession so corruptible: official power and mass-market reach.
Other countries in Asia also have their problems with corrupt journalists, but China's hybrid media system produces an especially potent mixture of official influence and profit incentive. When journalists from China's top news agencies approach a bureaucrat or businessmen, they have not only market power behind them but something even more formidable, the power of the state.
"They're invested with power because of this continuing role of the media as a sort of state functionary, so [people] basically trade in that political capital for commercial gain," Bandurski says. "It's this tension between commercialization and control, these two roles, that really creates a garden of corruption and falsehood."
A few leading names in Chinese journalism, including the respected business magazine Caijing, have tried to establish professional standards, swearing off "red envelope" journalism. (FORBES CHINA, this magazine's licensed Chinese-language edition, forbids such gifts "even in the form of transportation fees," says editor Lydia Chen.) But open challenges to this corrupt culture are the exception.
Zhou Ze, an associate professor of media studies at China Youth University for Political Sciences, even argues that "black journalism" can be a good thing. He says that because newspapers like his longtime former employer, the national newspaper Legal Daily, sometimes don't have enough money to cover travel expenses, it's okay to accept money from a source like a wronged family to report about their problem.
"Which is more ethical? Just leave this problem there and never report it, or take the money and report on their problem?" Zhou says.
Blackmailing the mine owners can be good because "it increases their costs," Zhou says. "Those mine owners might think if I have to face this kind of endless blackmail, I'd prefer to improve work safety conditions."
Some corrupt journalists in Shanxi justify their actions this way. One Shanxi reporter who offered to sell FORBES a purported video of journalists taking payoffs at a coal mine says that he and his colleagues call what they do to mine owners "black eating black." He explains: "For those black-hearted mine owners, we have to use the black methods to deal with them."
But this is no system of accountability. It is another layer of China's economy of corruption, a thriving shadow market that has undermined well-intentioned government edicts for years.
For coal mines, which last year had 3,786 reported worker deaths (and some unknowable quantity not in the official statistics), this shadow market does not deter deadly accidents so much as treat them as a business expense.
"There are many mines that have their own media consultant," says journalist Wang Keqin, who has investigated illegal mines in Shanxi. "Once the mine has an accident, all the reporters come, and the mine's media consultant would give red envelopes based on what kind of media you are. CCTV might get 50,000 to 100,000 [yuan, or $7,250 to $14,500], Xinhua might get 50,000. For provincial level media, it could be 30,000, and for small newspapers it could be a couple thousand to 20,000. This money is called the 'make-you-shut-up fee,' and it's also called the 'media public relations fee.'" Xinhua, for its part, denies having had any case of corruption in recent years and says it would fire a journalist found to have taken hush money.
It is a profitable racket, and it draws a lot of what the Chinese media call "fake journalists." China Youth Daily reported last November that in the previous few months in Shanxi, 28 "fake journalists" were arrested for blackmail, 1,362 fake journalist ids and work passes were confiscated, and 45 illegal bureaus were shut down.
Such state media reports, though, imply that fake journalists are con men staining the name of properly accredited Chinese journalists. In fact, reporters told FORBES, they are often recruited by news bureaus to raise cash.
"Many small newspapers, provincial-level nonmainstream newspapers, when they set up news bureaus or other offices in other cities, usually they set an income target," says one bureau reporter in Shanxi, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. "The bureaus themselves, one or two people, cannot meet the target, so they hire other temporary people to help meet the target, and those people cannot write.
"People say that you can be a fruit stand owner one day and a journalist the next."
That became obvious on our journey through Shanxi Province. Our guide, Old Zhao, didn't seek hush money in our presence, but he tried to recruit the driver hired by FORBES to become a journalist for future missions. Zhao informed the driver that being able to write was not a prerequisite.
Additional reporting by Qu Wei.
