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Alain Peter

The Transformation of Professional Values in Chinese Investigative Journalism

ABSTRACT: Two generations of investigative journalists are mixed together in Chinese editorial boards: those who started before 2010 and those who came after. The former contributed to the rise of investigative journalism in commercial media outlets in the 1990s and 2000s, and the latter have experienced the economic crisis of the traditional outlets and neo-authoritarianism since the rise to power of Xi Jinping. Interviews with 29 investigative journalists show that a transformation of professional values has occurred in the under 35 generation compared to their peers over 35, as the media ecosystem itself transformed in the 2010s. Changes in the journalists’ academic training and social origin have also contributed to this transformation of values, which ultimately serves Xi Jinping’s long-term authoritarian political agenda. KEYWORDS: journalism, investigation, generation, media, values, censorship, university, professional.

Negotiations and Asymmetric Games in Chinese Editorial Departments: The Search for Editorial Autonomy by Journalists of Dongfang Zaobao and Pengpai/The Paper

ABSTRACT: At the beginning of the twenty-first century, journalism in China was marked by a breakthrough in investigative journalism that resulted from a particular conjuncture: the central government’s wish to control local authorities through surveillance by the media, coupled with the desire of a new generation of journalists to carry out investigations in a professional manner. Between 2003 and 2016, a group of journalists in Shanghai running the daily paper Dongfang Zaobao and then the news site Pengpai bore witness to this period. A series of interviews with these journalists enabled us to understand their strategy over the long term and identify a phase of negotiations with the authorities that led to the creation of media and a period of asymmetric game-playing to produce information. It emerged that although the journalists accumulated major successes in matters of investigation, the authorities ultimately always curtailed editorial freedom. KEYWORDS: Journalism, investigation, media, game, negotiation, censorship, Shanghai.