Fifty years of breakneck industrialisation and economic development have had severe consequences for China's environment. Chinese media have a central role to play in spreading the "green" message. New report from IMS

In recent years concerns over China’s severe pollution challenges has been a regular feature on the global media agenda. But how is the Chinese media approaching the issue of environmental damage and climate change? International Media Support and the Caijing Fellowship Programme of Caijing magazine, China’s leading finance magazine and exponent of investigative journalism, decided to find out.

Political focus on climate change

During a 10 day course on climate change and environmental journalism in June 2009 in Beijing and Copenhagen funded by IMS, the China Media Centre interviewed 10 media professionals and lecturers about the prevailing attitudes towards climate change in the media, authorities and general public in China today - and the terms under which Chinese media cover environmental themes.

The report “New opportunities for environmental and climate change journalism in China” (February 2010)  presents a selection of these interviews carried out by senior, established Chinese journalists with environment briefs as well as by young reporters freshly engaged in the environment. (Read the report in Chinese)

Judging from the respondents’ anonymous replies, China has seen a change in the political focus on environment issues. This, in turn, has had a positive effect on increased media coverage of environmental issues. One Chinese journalist noted:

- The biggest change is the political focus on environmental issues. Then there is the fact that the environmental agency has adopted new media policies; environment is a new priority within the media; journalists are more competent; there’s new legislation on access to information and a new emergence of environmental NGOs. I note that [in the case of my own magazine] in the past four years our circulation has gone up 10-fold, qual­ity is immensely better.

Growing transparency concerning environment

Another journalist highlighted the growing understanding of understanding of environmental issues amongst journalists and a new tendency for media to cover individual stories/cases on this topic rather than only reporting collectively on an environmental issue dictated by authorities. Authorities have become more amenable to media exposure of environmental damage than before.

- The situation has changed out of all recognition recently, says one journalist interviewed.
- Investigations have created such transparency as to, in effect, metamorphosing into a penal system. In the past, when environment dereliction was identified, the government tended to collude in a cover-up; now they allow exposure. Of course the officials responsible are not adequately penalised, because they tend to be moved to another area rather than lose their jobs entire­ly; however, environment awareness has become a criterion by which to judge officials, that’s why I say investigations have become a kind of penal system.

China’s media landscape

Although news production in China still operates in an authoritarian political system in which the political leadership aims to guide and control both the media and public opinion, the Chinese media environment has developed significantly as a result of dramatic ideological and socio-economic changes, according to the authors of the report. These include: commercialisation; globalisation; the increased social tension between the poor and the rich; and the rising consciousness of media’s social and cultural responsibilities in Chinese public discourse.

A factor that has contributed to the growth in investigative reporting is a developing professionalism among journalists, who increasingly see themselves as scrutinising the powerful and protecting the weak and vulnerable. Several newspapers and magazines, including China Youth Daily, Southern Weekend, Southern Metropolis Daily and Caijing, have a reputation for publishing critical and investigative stories. 

Although the media remain under government supervision and stories can be killed by government at local or provincial level if deemed too “negative” from an official point of view, the growing attention and  coverage of environmental issues is a positive trend. Only through increased public awareness, can pollution and climate change be curbed.

Read the full report here.