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Angry Chinese Blogger:
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Local authorities attempt to cover up bridge disaster
Care of the International Herald Tribune
BEIJING: Most state media have been banned from reporting on the deadly collapse of a bridge in southern China, with local officials punching journalists and chasing them from the scene, reporters said.
Rescue crews blasted away stone and concrete Friday to better search the rubble. They uncovered six more bodies, and said it unlikely any survivors would be found, Xinhua News Agency reported.
The reporting ban, issued by the Central Propaganda Department, came Thursday while reporters swarmed the tourist town of Fenghuang to report on Monday's accident.
Unidentified local residents roughed up five reporters as they interviewed relatives of the dead, according to a photographer and a reporter whose colleague was allegedly among those pushed around. They declined to be identified, saying they feared reprisals.
The collapse of the bridge, which had been under construction, left at least 47 people dead, making it one of China's worst building accidents in years.
The rough treatment of journalists was at odds with the responsible, concerned image China's Communist Party leadership has tried to convey ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and following the collapse.
Officials have promised a thorough investigation into the collapse, and punishment for any wrongdoing.
The accident raises troubling questions about shoddy building and possible corruption between officials and contractors — suspicions fueled by trying to control reporting on the disaster.
"The local government does not want the media to uncover the collapse," said Li Datong, a veteran journalist forced from a top editing job two years ago for running reports that angered authorities.
Li said reporters told him about the harassment in Fenghuang.
A duty officer in the Fenghuang police department, Liu Xiajun, said reporters had made an emergency call reporting the harassment Thursday.
An official in the Propaganda Department's information office said he was "not clear" about the ban. He declined to give his name.
All China media are state controlled, but some outlets have engaged in lively, aggressive reporting in recent years, as social freedoms accompanied economic growth.
However, accounts of journalists being hurt by local thugs have increased. A reporter was beaten to death early this year.
While ACB often defends China, and likes to make known that things are often either not as bad as foreigners think, or that they are they are that for some reason other than "China is a threat" or "all Chinese are wicked", this blogger must decry behavior such as this.
Despite Beijing's claims to the contrary, China is still very much a country where media freedom is lacking. If it is not the central government trying to hide things that make it look bad, it's local governments throwing their weight around in order to cover up embarrassing stories, and if it it's not the local governments doing it then it's corrupt businessmen and leaders using their power and influence to direct the press away from their indiscretions or the indiscretions of their paymasters.
The fact that, even in this modern age, Chinese officials want to cover up industrial incidents is a poor comment on progress indeed.
In case anybody is interested, the murdered journalist mentioned above was Lan Chengzhang from China Trade News. Lan was beaten to death after discovering illegal practices at a local coal mine, after the murder officials denied that Lan was a journalist, instead labeling the reporter a blackmailer who got what was coming to them, in an attempt to cover up embarrassing details of the case. You can read more about Lan's murder and the subsequent cover up attempt here.