China mulls first press law to improve news coverage

Almost all of the media in China is state controlled or functioned under the state's supervision.

China plans to introduce its first press law to enable the state controlled media to make a greater impact after years of clamour by experts. Liu Binjie, the former director of the defunct General Administration of Press and Publication, said that new media outlets have been carrying eye-catching stories with relatively more independence and rapidly expanding influence, while traditional media outlets are still being managed under strict rules that limited their impact.

A press law would end the imbalance, he said. “A press law would lay out the legal, moral and social boundaries for media. “It would also allow the media more discretion in their

reporting under the legal framework,” Liu was quoted as saying by state-run Global Times.

Almost all of the media in China is state controlled or functioned under the state’s effective supervision. While the contours of the media expanded due to pressure from social media, recent report say that media regulations have been tightened under the new leadership. Chinese scholars and lawyers have been calling for a press law for over a decade. Incidents of journalists being beaten were frequently reported.

Meanwhile, some reporters’ unethical behavior such as charging companies for positive coverage has also been punished, the report said. Authorities are also considering greater protection for the intellectual property rights of news products, said Liu. Online news portals will have to pay for information and original stories uploaded to the platform before reposting them, the Shandong-based Dazhong Daily reported.

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