On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 2:56 PM, SS <cybers...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Tue, 2013-01-15 at 14:38 +0530, Andy Deemer wrote: > > but I've run a Chinese government > > propaganda magazine > > Wow! That IS unusual for someone on Silk. Would you be able to say how > the propaganda gets to the editor/publisher? I mean is there a local > party rep who sends an email or a print out? > > shiv
Didn't mean to write so much here, but... It wasn't hard-line propaganda -- there was a facade of editorial freedom -- but I was guided in certain directions, and more strongly guided away from others. It was supposed to be a magazine about an emerging China, using the 5,000 years of history as a backbone. We'd talk about the internal ethnic peace, the technological and environmental advances, and the great cuisine of China. Two of these are obviously skewed. We *could* talk about the peace and beauty of Tibet, but only that side of it, and only rarely. We weren't really allowed to talk about Xinjiang at all (although we did fight to run an article about their tasty kebabs.) We'd publish long articles about certain party members or their organizations or awards, usually in extremely drab translations from the Chinese. One of my first challenges was persuading the publisher against running an article that claimed Buddhism was a Chinese invention. (???) Every article would have to be conceptually approved, then read, dissected, and approved or rejected by several aging party members. Even after that, the editorial team would suffer hour-long lectures about such things as the use of the word "Mao" in the same paragraph as the word "mistake" (even though they were unconnected.) Or the highly dangerous use of the word "Formosa," which was never actually used. (I had to look it up after the lecture.) We were almost shut down for using the words "Taiwan" and "India" in the same sentence. Or -- in one wonderfully absurd case -- a fiery lecture about our near-use of an image of a Mao statue, with scaffholding around the base. "What does this mean," the publisher screamed. "Are you saying Mao is broken? Or tarnished? Are you saying there was something wrong with Mao? Or are you trying to imprison him?!!" We would regularly (weekly?) have "criticism" sessions, directly mirroring those from the cultural revolution. Every company employee would take turns speaking against one poor employee, criticizing their performance. It was a unique experience.
