Openness to media 'will stay' after the Olympics

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-07-31 09:22

Openness to the foreign media will be a long-term policy, Liu Binjie, minister of the General Administration of Press and Publication, said.

"China's open door to the foreign media will not close after the Games," he told Xinhua in an undated interview, which was published Thursday.

"We regard the May 12 earthquake and the Olympic Games press coverage as an 'important test' of media reforms and will explore building a more open and transparent system after the Games."

The government issued a series of regulations at the end of 2006, stipulating that foreign journalists could conduct interviews in China as long as they had consent from the interviewees.

However, some feared that the open door would be shut after the Games, since the regulations expire in October.

"We are mapping out a new regulation that we are confident will make China's media still more open and transparent," Liu said.

"With the country's media coverage of emergencies becoming more timely, rumors are losing ground," he said.

Some critics have said that since thousands of domestic and foreign journalists are expected during the Games, the government would be extremely nervous about possible negative reports.

"We are confident of being challenged by journalists after 30 years of reform and opening up," Liu said.

A Beijing Olympic Games organizing committee official said yesterday all journalists covering the Games "will enjoy sufficient and convenient Internet access".

Sun Weide, a media official with the organizing committee, told reporters at a press conference held in the Main Press Center: "Our promise was that journalists would be able to use the Internet during the Games. We have given them sufficient access to do that."

His remarks were in response to some reporters' questions about the difficulty they were having in trying to browse certain websites.

Not far from the press room some journalists could be seen working on the Internet.

Celso Paiva, a Brazilian journalist, said: "Until now, I have not had any problem accessing the news websites."

Although there is still more than a week to go before the start of the Games, an average of 150 reporters a day are already using the media center.

On the first floor of the center there is an Internet bar with 24 computers providing free Internet access from 9 am to midnight each day.

Gregory Miller, an Australian TV technician, was surfing the Internet.

"I just sent a couple of e-mails, and now I'm browsing news. The Internet service is quite convenient here," he said.