Abstract
Shaw’s theory of human rights journalism (HRJ) rises in a timely fashion in responding to the increasing interests in researching for a more advanced journalistic role in human rights news reporting. Shaw and Luo thus expand the study of HRJ in the political, social and cultural contexts of China. Perspectives of both the foreign and the Chinese journalists are collected to explore the challenges of practising HRJ in China. The core finding argues that the Chinese media landscape is too restrictive to allow for the smooth practice of HRJ. Key challenges include the press censorship, the politicisation of human rights, the lack of public interest in the liberal interpretation of human rights, the lack of trust to the foreign journalists, and so on.
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- 1.
Interview transcription: ‘in China’s news reporting, if the term of human rights constantly show up, it is probably used as a weapon for safeguarding’ (CJ 3); ‘when they [the official Chinese newspapers] talk about human rights, they aim to confront the Western criticisms on China’s human rights issues’ (CJ 6).
- 2.
Interview transcription: “for the majority of the Chinese people, they don’t really care about human rights or human rights issues” (CJ 3); “the current problem is, the Chinese people have no idea about what rights they have…there is a need to first educate the people what their rights and obligations are”; “the journalists only write what the people want to read, if you [the journalist] write about the human rights, they are just not interested” (CJ 8); “the entire media do not have a common awareness in human rights protection” (CJ 5).
- 3.
Interview transcription: “this is because, in the past, we had many restrictions on information flow and delivery, so what we want at the moment is to first enlarge the space of expression…of course, I agree that the natural responsibility of the media is to supervise particularly on the aspects of civil rights, but still, for China, there will be a process demanded for China to grow” (CJ 5).
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Shaw, I.S., Luo, D. (2019). Understanding and Practising Human Rights Journalism in China. In: Shaw, I.S., Selvarajah, S. (eds) Reporting Human Rights, Conflicts, and Peacebuilding. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10719-2_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10719-2_10
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