Olympics challenge for reporters
By JOHN LEICESTER Associated Press Writer

PARIS (AP) - Secret police tails. Reprimands or perhaps even expulsion for writing about topics sensitive for the Chinese Communist Party. Propaganda apparatchiks working overtime to stifle negative news.

These were some of the grim scenarios painted Friday at a Paris conference sponsored by press freedom groups about conditions that foreign reporters might face at the Beijing Olympics this August.

China's viewpoint was not heard: The two-day meeting's organizers said Beijing Games officials, the International Olympic Committee, leading sports manufacturers and NBC, which holds the U.S. rights to broadcast the Olympics, declined or did not respond to invitations.

Some 30,000 officially accredited and non-accredited journalists - a ratio of roughly three reporters for every athlete - are expected in Beijing for the Games.

China insists it will keep promises made during Beijing's bid in 2001 that reporters will be allowed to cover the Games as they have previous ones. But Chinese officials stop short of explicitly guaranteeing unrestricted reporting.

"We welcome media from all around the world to come to Beijing and report about the Olympics. We'll follow the practice of the Olympic Games, keep our bidding promise and provide convenient support to reporters covering the Games," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said this week. "In the meantime, I hope they will be objective and balanced in reporting, and show their professional ethics and quality in their work."

Speakers at the Paris conference agreed that reporters who limit themselves to covering sports in Beijing will likely be fine.

But there were grave doubts about China's promises. In the wake of violent anti-government protests in Tibet and across western China last month, China has repeatedly detained journalists and banned them from parts of the country.

"If you've not been to China before, you are going to be wowed by the modernization," said Merle Goldman of Harvard University, author of the book "From Comrade to Citizen: The Struggle for Political Rights in China."

She added, however, that China's government "is frightened by its own people" and that virulent nationalism bubbling up among younger Chinese in particular is "very disturbing."

Western reporters in China have recently received harassing phone calls, e-mails and text messages, some with death threats, purportedly from ordinary Chinese complaining about alleged bias in coverage of the Tibetan protests.

The harassment targeted foreign television broadcasters - particularly CNN - and broadened after mobile phone numbers and other information for reporters from The Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today were posted on several Web sites in China.

Steve Wilson, the AP's European sports editor, told the Paris conference that the news agency expects its reporters will be able to work in Beijing as they have at previous Olympics. Quoting former IOC chief Juan Antonio Samaranch, Wilson added: "The success of an Olympics is determined by the verdict of the press."

But Chinese journalist Gao Yu, imprisoned for nearly six years in the 1990s on charges of leaking state secrets, said foreign reporters should expect police surveillance, because it "is just run of the mill."

"If you are only doing sports, I guess you will be quite free. But journalists will have problems if they concern themselves with things that don't make the Chinese government happy," said Gao, who traveled from Beijing for the conference.

Such topics include Taiwan, Tibet, and China's restive western Xinjiang region, as well as the government's treatment of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, dissidents and AIDS, to name a few.

"At the most serious, you could be expelled or possibly be warned or the Foreign Ministry or others will talk to your media organization," said Gao.

In fact, expulsions have been rare over the past decade or more. Warnings are more common: China's Foreign Ministry this week summoned CNN's Beijing bureau chief to protest after commentator Jack Cafferty referred to China's leaders as a "bunch of goons and thugs."

Another concern is the safety of Chinese citizens who work for foreign reporters, doing translation, arranging interviews and providing tips. They "may well be most at risk" if the interviews or information are deemed sensitive, said Paul Steiger, former managing editor of The Wall Street Journal and chairman of the New Yorkbased Committee to Protect Journalists.

In today's market-driven China, the prospect of reporters in trouble offers an economic opportunity. Chinese legal scholar Li Baiguang left laminated advertising cards for participants in Paris, offering a 24-hour telephone hotline for "foreign journalists who may need legal advice during the Olympic Games."