Investigative journalists for hire in China

Edward Cody of the Washington Post has once again dug up a fascinating story about the new rules of journalism in China: Professional journalists who hire themselves out to interested parties to uncover and report -- via the Web -- on scandals or perceived injustices. From the article:

Xu [Xiang] and Li Xinde, another Web reporter for hire, said they take fees from those who can afford to pay but also investigate for free if victims cannot raise any money. Often they ask only for their expenses, such as plane fare and hotel costs, they said.

"It's not strange for the self-supported Web-site reporters to ask someone to cover transportation expenses," Li said, "and usually the reporters clearly state that on their Web sites or in e-mails."

Party censorship also extends to the Internet, which is policed by an elaborate computer system and an army of snoops who monitor what Chinese people read and say online. But that censorship comes after the fact; it can only monitor what has been posted. Web condottieri such as Xu and Li may get bounced off the Internet, but only after their articles reach the public and get passed around. If one site is blocked, they quickly start up another.

Xu, who has been sued for defamation by one group of officials, said he takes care in his articles to attack only the misdeeds of corrupt local officials and not the government in general. He has studied law, he said, to avoid getting into trouble with the police in the cat-and-mouse game he is forced to play.

What's also interesting about this trend is that it extends to rural areas, where a new class of Internet-savvy users are bypassing local media and local officials to air their grievances, potentially to a national audience. One example cited by Cody involves a property-related dispute in a small village in Sichuan. A young man from the village used the 'Net to research and contact about 30 journalists-for-hire. It's hard to imagine something like this happening five years ago, but the fact of the matter is a huge number of people across China -- including people living in rural areas -- are getting online and using the 'Net to communicate and gather information. This has huge implications for the government, which until recently had much stronger controls over information transfer.