To define journalism is as impossible as to define a person. But be it print journalism or on-line journalism, be it press journalism or citizen journalism, they all have one thing in common: truth. The path to journalism is the path to truth.
-- Zhai Minglei (翟明磊)
"I hereby resign as a journalist of South Weekend. For the past three years, I have never used South Weekend as a tool to build my own fortune, or promote myself to a higher position. I came here for journalism. Now I'm leaving also for journalism. "
"It was insufferable to see your story be killed because it criticized the local government. It was an insult to the journalists who had made great efforts to write the story, and an insult to the integrity of journalism." Zhai Minglei explained in his resignation letter, "I had never seen such a thing happen in South Weekend before , and it was more than I could bear. "
The aborted story aforementioned was about the government's insufficient protection of Mingxiao Mausoleum, a royal cemetery of Ming Dynasty, in Nanjing. His colleagues had prepared for the story to be printed on the newspaper, but the new Chief Editor ordered it to be taken off for the reason that the news had targeted at the municipal authorities. Zhai Minglei protested. Then he was suspended. At last, he resigned.
"I hate to work in an environment where the news room was like bureaucratic institute and where news was not about truth. I must leave because I'm a knight of news." When recalling this incident, Zhai Minglei didn't seem to be reminiscent of the "glorious" time he had at South Weekend, "I'm not a nostalgic person. Past is dead history. When I look at that past, I was as if reading another person's story. Some people might sigh and say to me, 'What a pity. You should have dealt with it in a strategic way instead of confronting the newspaper and resigning.' It is a rational saying, but I'm an individualist. I can't just bend myself and play by the unfair rules."
Born in 1973, Zhai Minglei lived through the last 3 years of Cultural Revolution in his childhood. It was a time when the craziness of the country was waning, new thoughts were blooming and the first one-child generation was formed. The whole period of 1980s-- before the students' demonstration and government's crack-down on them in Tian'anmen Square in 1989-- was free, a time of "Enlightenment". Universities were permeated with liberated minds and freedom. Students would have dance party after class. Posters of different political views could be seen on the walls on campus. "I studied journalism at university, but I didn't spend much time in studying. I even sold my text books for beer because all that was written in the text books could be summarized in one sentence: do journalism under the party committee." Although learning little from the books, Zhai Minglei launched a newspaper for his class, called Mirror. He also went to the Department of Chinese Language, and published an article by his schoolmate "Reflection on Cultural Revolution". The school later order it to be removed. Upon graduation, he wrote "The Forth Power in the United States" as his dissertation, but no teacher wanted to grade it. "Individualism is rooted in my nature." said Zhai Minglei. "I studied little at university, but I developed my character, which always views the individual above everything."
After leaving college, Zhai Minglei didn't actually want to choose journalism as his career. However, he slowly realized that he couldn't fight against his nature. "I'm a freedom-lover, and a truth-teller. I'm full of curiosity and energy. So I ended up being a journalist soon after that because it suited me."
However, when submiting his resignation letter, Zhai Minglei had made his mind that he would not work for any press organization any more. There were two things he had learned from his work experiences: for a young man, if he wants to make some achievements, he must do it outside the "box"; and he must do it by starting with the little things.
Jumping out of the "box", Zhai Minglei established an NGO group Green Root Power together with his friends in 2003. "I didn't simply want to be a critic or challenger of the authorities. I also wanted to be a builder, to build citizenship in our society." The group was funded on the 80,000 yuan Zhai Minglei and his three other friends gave out. Their job was to train people how to do social work. Group members came from all walks of life. Zhai Minglei thought that by staying away from government and politics-- because it was "non-governmental"-- he could gain more freedom and do more things at a civil level. However, his training classes were under the police's supervision. Secret police followed their whereabouts, and even invited Zhai Minglei for "a cup of tea [2]". In 2005, Green Root Power was banned.
Nonetheless, Zhai Minglei didn't stop his effort in raising civil awareness among the grassroots and realizing his individualism. In that year, with the help from Sun Yat-Sen University, he launched the magazine Civil (民间). He was the chief editor and coordinator. "I could write any story I wanted because the magazine was independent and non-profit. It allowed me to interview the most ordinary people whose stories I had overlooked when I worked for the newspaper." As its name indicates, the magazine was all about the civil activities in China. Zhai Minglei wrote stories about young volunteers teaching in the village, about lawyers offering help to poor people, about animal activists trying to save bears from people's inhumane treatment. Again, the magazine got on the authorities' nerves. After several warnings and attempted suppressions, on November 29, 2007, police came into Zhai Minglei's home in Shanghai, searched his house, confiscated all the copies of the magazine, and took away the hard-drive from his computer. The two-year old magazine was officially claimed dead. "When I was involved in Green Root Poewr and Civil, I actually wanted to evade politics. But then I said to myself, Can I just report civil society and events of public interests? As it turns out-- No. Anything can go wrong when there is no democracy but dictatorship. No one can evade politics. One must have political awareness unless he wants to separates himself from civil life."
Right after the magazine was banned, Zhai Minglei decided to launch his own newspaper. "I didn't want to bring trouble to my friends any more. So I said, OK, I'm going to take the responsibilities on my own." He created a personal blog as an on-line newspaper-- "1bao", meaning One-Man's Newspaper, and became a citizen journalist. "1bao" carries on the style of the magazine Civil. It continues to focus on the ordinary people, whose voices are rarely heard or silenced. In its first edition, Zhai Minglei wrote on his "newspaper":
What China lacks is a healthy individualism. Therefore, "1bao" will be a medium of individualism. It may have prejudices or even arbitrariness, but it will never have lies.
When asked what significance it makes to be a citizen journalist under the harsh political situation in China, Zhai Minglei said what he feared was not the one-party dictatorship, nor the lack of democracy, but the declining pursuit of civil justice and civil morality. "I can't see that happen to our civil life. If nobody pursues those things, if nobody tells the truth, our country will die out." But three months after its launching, "1bao" was blocked in China. Although he has a mirror page of "1bao" on www.my1510.cn, the biggset platform of China's citizen journalists, Zhai Minglei still saw pieces of his news removed from the website because they didn't pass the censorship. How could he practise citizen journalism and spread his civil ideas then, when many people in China have no direct access to his blog and news on the mirror page is under censorship? "So long as a citizen journalist finds the topics of public interests and issues that people really care about, blockade or censorship won't be a problem. I remember once I wrote about Robert's Rules of Order on '1bao'. Surprisingly, a community civil rights activist contacted me and asked me for more means to break the blockade. I was so happy. When my articles are deleted from the website, I would try every way to break through, like when my story of Xu Zhiyong [3] was removed, I used docs.google.com to disseminate the artilce. I even put on free ads of google's tool to let more people know. A citizen journalist is totally dependent on himself. He writes what the mainstream media don't write, which proves that China has individuals. As long as individuals survive, we can make it, because the seeds of hope are sown in people's hearts."
But Zhai Minglei confessed that he was not always that upbeat. Sometimes he would also be hopeless and speechless, and stop updating his blog for weeks. His fear was mostly from the police's abusive use of power. "After I was questioned by the police for the first time, I was so paranoid that I would check the windows and door time after time at home." That's why Zhai Minglei wants to introduce citizen journalism to more people and make them join him. He compares every single citizen journalist to a wave. When enough waves are converging, the sea will emerge. That's when changes happen. "It's not complicated to practise citizen journalism. Everybody who wants to tell truth can do it. "
However, citizen journalism is different from press journalism. Sometimes simply the difference in names means difficulty. As a citizen journalist, Zhai Minglei is denied of interviews with government officials more than when he worked for South Weekend. "But I keep on trying. I offer the opportunity and my honesty to them. Identity isn't that important. Even if you are a student, tell them who you are. They might accept your interview request. Not all the interviewees judge you by whether you're useful to them or not." Sometimes the difference means flexibility. In the September of 2007, the local government in Longquan issued a notice to the farmers that their farmland would be taken back by the government together with their crops that were ready for harvest. Tension was increasingly high between two sides, and a conflict was on the edge of break. "1bao" then played as a participant in that incident when Zhai Minglei was following the story. He helped two sides arrive at negotiation. A bloody conflict was prevented from happening. "I think a citizen journalist should also be a participant in our civil life." commented Zhai Minglei, "In that sense, a citizen journalist changes the traditional understanding of a journalist."
But how can a citizen journalist tell a truthful story while he plays a role in it? "Avoid being tangled in the different groups of interests." said Zhai Minglei. "When I was reporting in Longquan, I paid for all my travels and accommodations. Although I was in a poor financial state, I must pay these fees myself. Only by doing so could it be possible for me to report objectively. Also because of my noninterested stance, both the government and farmers trusted me." Touching upon the money issue, I asked Zhai Minglei how he managed to handle it while working for his own newspaper. "I don't make money from my blog. It's just something I enjoy doing. I earn money from short-term jobs. I have academic contract with Hong Kong University, and I'm also a guest lecturer at South China Normal University. Other incomes are from writing and training programme."
As Zhai Minglei describes himself, he is a very simple person who lives a simple life. "I'm not an ambitious man who wants to make history, neither am I a decisive or calculating person. Every time I speak out because I can't keep it to myself-- I must say it. I act simply out of a citizen's conscience. I reported the news and I felt I did justice to my moral sense. When my stories get down to the readers, my mission is completed."
* This article is based on email interviews with Zhai Minglei, his resignation letter and two autobiographical articles, and another article about him written by Huang Jinfen. *Interview with Zhai Minglei conducted by Danwei: Youtube Video
[1] Project Hope (希望工程) is a Chinese public service project organized by the China Youth Development Foundation (CYDF) and the Communist Youth League (CYL) Central Committee. Started in October 30 1989, it aims to bring schools into poverty-stricken rural areas of China, to help children whose families are too poor to afford it to complete elementary school education.
[2] "to have a cup of tea" (喝茶) is a Chinese euphemism for secret police's interrogation.
[3] Xu Zhiyong (许志永) is a lecturer at the Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications. He was one of the founders of the NGO Open Constitution Initiative and an active rights lawyer in China who helped those underprivileged. In 2009, July 29, he was arrested at his home, and detained by Chinese authorities on charges of tax evasion.
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