Nipped in the bud
 

IT WAS in a rather brusque and unceremonious fashion that the Cenci Journalism Project, a crowdsourced and volunteer-run media translation site, was systematically removed this month from the Chinese internet. Its website was blocked and erased from domestic search engines. Its private discussion forums were shut down; the personal social media accounts of its founder and executive editor were deleted; and its over 200 volunteers’ social media profiles were renamed and tampered with. Searches for the website's name on the Chinese internet prompted a notice saying that “according to laws, regulations and policy, a portion of your search results cannot be shown”.

 

The Cenci project was founded in 2011 by 25-year-old Kang Xia (pictured), who was then still a student at Beijing Foreign Studies University. The word cenci in its name means simply “diverse” or “varied”, and Mr Kang’s intention was to translate news sources from across the world into Chinese to provide multiple perspectives on global and Chinese events. Or, as the project’s first slogan had it, “Same events, diversified reports”.

 

With all the editors and translators working on a volunteer basis, Cenci was among the first civic media platforms in China. With a peak last year of 400 volunteer translators and a readership of tens of thousands, it was probably China’s most successful civic media initiative. In the wake of its shut down, Weibo (a Chinese social media platform commonly likened to Twitter) was flooded with sad and angry comments. But speaking to The Economist, Mr Kang claims “it is no surprise that Cenci would meet this fate”. 

 

Cenci was founded shortly before a deadly Wenzhou train crash in July 2011. “The whole world media was watching that news,” Mr Kang says. “We translated reports from different media around the world, directly contrasting the facts and opinions, so that Chinese readers could see the difference between how the official media and other media were telling the story,” he says. “That was radical.”

 

Cenci also came to the attention of government censors because of its coverage of other sensitive stories. one was the botched attempt at censorship of Southern Weekend, a Guangzhou-based newspaper that last year tried to run a New Year’s Day editorial calling for constitutionalism in China.  

 

Asked if he received direct warnings about Cenci’s focus on such issues, Mr Kang hesitates before responding. “Yes. We had warnings through the whole three years of the project. But I don’t think I can talk about that.”

 

Earlier this year, Mr Kang decided to reduce the amount of provocative content on the site. “All I wanted was for Cenci to stay alive. For the last half year our content has been very soft, mostly about films and culture.” But this was not enough to keep authorities from systematically swooping in for the kill. Through talking to friends and “people on the inside”, however, Mr Kang soon discovered that, in the new and tightly restricted media environment of the Xi Jinping administration, it is no longer the content that matters. It is the format and the concept: citizen journalists providing diverse perspectives.

 

Since Xi Jinping took over as China’s president in March 2013, Chinese journalists have operated under increasingly tighter media restrictions. on July 15th a new directive on journalist press passes barred journalists from releasing any information from interviews or press conferences via social media or mentioning such information at public events without the consent of their employer media organisations. Press passes will not be granted to journalists who fail to sign a secrecy agreement.

 

Propaganda departments have also been clamping down on journalists’ involvement with foreign media outlets. Since May a veteran journalist, Gao Yu, has been detained for allegedly leaking a Party document to the foreign press. on July 18th, Song Zhibiao, a reporter for China Fortune, was forced to resign because he wrote commentaries for the Hong Kong-based Oriental Press Group.

 

That Cenci was a major resource for Chinese journalists seeking out sources they could not normally access is perhaps another reason for the website’s closure. Mr Kang estimates that for the first year of the project at least half of his readers were Chinese media professionals. With the tightening restrictions on journalism, such an archive of non government-approved information and opinions was an obvious target for censorship.

 

Does the blocking of Cenci and this new media environment strike an early death knell for civic media and citizen journalism in China? Mr Kang’s answer is a resolute “No”. He says there are hundreds of small civic media projects. Most are starting out, like Cenci did, on university campuses among groups of young and idealistic students. Also like Cenci, they risk being shut down if they become too popular. “If they succeed they will fail,” Mr Kang says, “but the idea of civic media survives. It’s a huge wave which nobody can stop.

(Picture credit: Courtesy Kang Xia)