| by Ruwantissa Abeyratne
( February 28, 2013, Montreal, Sri Lanka Guardian) The BBC recently reported that over a hundred open letters were floating in the internet, now open to users in China, calling the Chinese authorities to sign or otherwise adhere to the Convention on Human Rights. These letters also call upon the new Chinese administration to ease restrictions that are calculated to result in human rights violations. This is altogether a new development in China, which has hitherto clamped down on journalism that is considered critical of the administration. The fact that such communications are now tolerated in the public domain for Chinese to read, shows a marked trend that portrays the new Administration as being receptive to the voices of the people.
A Report of the United States Congressional Research Service, published on July 13 2012 stated: “The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has the world’s largest number of Internet users, estimated at 500 million people. Despite government efforts to limit the flow of online news, Chinese Internet users are able to access unprecedented amounts of information, and political activists have utilized the Web as a vital communications tool. In recent years, Twitter-like microblogging has surged, resulting in dramatic cases of dissident communication and public comment on sensitive political issues. However, the Web has proven to be less of a democratic catalyst in China than many observers had hoped. The PRC government has one of the most rigorous Internet censorship systems, which relies heavily upon cooperation between the government and private Internet companies. Some U.S. policy makers have been especially critical of the compliance of some U.S. Internet communications and technology (ICT) companies with China’s censorship and policing activities”.
This new open web trend resonates the flavor of flexibility seen in the acceptance speech of Xi Jinping when he said : “… In the new situation, our party faces many severe challenges, and there are many pressing problems within the party that need to be resolved, especially problems such as corruption and bribe-taking by some party members and cadres, being out of touch with the people, placing undue emphasis on formality and bureaucracy must be addressed with great effort….. Friends from the press, China needs to learn more about the world, and the world also needs to learn more about China. I hope you will continue to make more efforts and contributions to deepening the mutual understanding between China and the countries of the world…”
In this context China follows Russia, which has allowed State run newspapers and web pages to accommodate criticism of the State. However, both countries continue to strategically control the public media by allowing some criticism that appease society and giving them a sense of freedom and comfort. The philosophy behind this thinking is that a total clamp down would incite a backlash and at the extreme, a revolt by the people. This “opening up” is dexterously maneuvered with the contemporaneous control of inter personal electronic communications and social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, which, if allowed to proliferate would engender the equivalent of an “Arab Spring” as was experienced in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.
How does open journalism mesh with strategic governance? The term ‘governance’ refers to the act of governing, or the authority to rule and control. Through a process of evolution however, the application of the term across both private and public sectors has taken on various meanings, one of which is that governance is the application of principles of responsibility towards achieving a strategic direction. The strategic direction that a government should take in this context , is primarily towards gaining the respect and trust of its people, by giving them access to democratic processes such as information and analytical and investigative journalism. In this sense the Russian and Chinese administrations are being both clever and strategic, whereas an administration which clamps down on independent journalism is cutting its own throat (to use a colloquialism) in the long run.
Balanced reporting, which any government should encourage, should represent all sides of the story without personal observation or conjecture, and in the 21st century, a newsroom must endeavour to provide the full breadth of views in all their complexities so that the reader or audience is offered a complete picture of the situation and they can make up their own minds. Objectivity in reportage is also associated with newsgathering and reporting that emphasizes eyewitness accounts of events, corroboration of facts with multiple sources and balance. It also attributes an institutional role for journalists as a fourth estate - a body that stays independent from government and large interest groups. The traditional bottom line has been that journalists have to be neutral and just report the news, which helps the newspaper or station they represent in attracting business by way of advertisements on the basis that the journalism offered did not take sides and therefore did not harm the interests of the advertisers.
However, an entirely different breed of journalist also exists. Called advocacy journalists, their reportage is fact-based but support a specific point of view on an issue. Advocacy journalists might be expected to focus on stories dealing with corporate business practices, government policies, political corruption, and social issues. Advocacy journalists do not only report the corporate and civilian world but also report on war and give their own points of view. This brand of journalism is mostly seen under editorials of newspapers.
One of the most important features of virtuous journalism is objectivity which is frequently held to be essential to proper journalism. A credible journalist of integrity will always be objective and present facts as they stand, a quality which has had disastrous consequences. In the final analysis, the real worth of a journalists is in the manner in which a report is published. Although it is objectivity that is most critical to a journalist, objectivity and the journalist’s own perception of it may determine his own fate at the hands of the profession and its exigencies. While sociologist Michael Schudson argues that "the belief in objectivity is a faith in 'facts,' a distrust in 'values,' and a commitment to their segregation.”, an objective story is typically considered to be one that steers a middle path between two poles of political rhetoric. The tenets of objectivity are violated to the degree to which the story appears to favor one pole over the other.
Journalism is an established discipline of collecting, verifying, analyzing and presenting information gathered regarding current events, including trends, issues and people. Unlike many other professions, journalism has the most stringent of ethics and standards which include a professional “code of ethics" or the "canons of journalism." The basic codes and canons commonly appear in statements drafted by both professional journalism associations and individual print, broadcast, and online news organizations.
To curb such a democratic right belittles the word “democracy” in a so called democratic country. Besides, it would be far from strategic and would be calculated to erode any confidence the public has in a government. Such a move would include those running a government in the “Gonthadiya School of Diplomacy and Political Strategy”, to quote a brilliant and illustrious Sri Lankan journalist of a bygone era.
 The BBC recently reported that over a hundred open let...){kind=link}