tim's experiment

I would like to pay my respects to a Mr “Charlie Chan, Mid-levels” who has taken up a worthy cause in which some of us have been labouring in vain for decades. Mr Chan wrote a letter to the Post commenting on another Chan (Ronnie) who had criticised parts of John Tsang’s budgets as foolish. Basically the two Chans agree in criticising Mr Tsang, but that is not the point which had me cheering over my cornflakes. Mr Chan (Charlie) dealt at some length with the defence of Mr Tsang’s give-aways offered by an “unnamed government source”. He went on to criticise the anonymity, in words on which I cannot improve: “If a government source wants to give information to the public the person should not remain ‘unnamed’. The South China Morning Post should desist from publishing such government quotes unless they are backed by a name and and official position.”

And so say all of us. I think I first made this point in a column in the old Tiger Standard in about 1981. It has come up regularly since. Without effect. Government sources like to be anonymous. It cloaks them in the majesty of spokesmanship even if they are actually rather junior. It allows political appointees to speak without revealing the possible conflicts of interest which seem to be a trade mark of the present administration. And it allows the speaker to lie with impunity, because when he is contradicted by another nameless spokesman later we do not know who he or she was, or whether the first, or the second nameless spokesperson was telling the truth. Or, maybe, neither.

It is a little unfair to blame the continuing attractions of this practice on newspapers. Reporters hunger and thirst for information and find it hard to be picky about where they find it. One of the British newspapers (the Guardian, which being a non-profit-making publication can afford to be high-minded about these things) did for a while boycott the anonymous briefings provided in Downing Street. No other media followed this example. Perhaps it is better that we should regularly be reminded that we are led by cowards and deceivers who are too ashamed to do their speaking in public.

I fear also that Mr Chan is a bit optimistic in expecting any fearless innovations in abrasive journalism from the present leaders of the Post. Still if they are considering his suggestion I happily second it. While they are at it they might also consider the attribution of parts of stories to un-named “analysts”. Today (Tuesday) the lead story was a rewrite with adornments of a Xinhua story (as we call pieces of political propaganda in a mainland context) about a meeting between a senile retired war criminal (Henry Kissinger) and a senile semi-retired despot (Jiang Zemin).

I have no intention of commenting on the content of this story, which was not journalism and so of no interest. From a technical point of view, though, we were given in the first paragraph of the story an interpretation from “analysts”. In the ninth paragraph we had some shameless interpretation – “This is a clear message…” – attributed to nobody at all. In the 17th paragraph (this is not a short story) the unnamed analysts are with us again. In the 19th paragraph we finally meet one analyst, Zhang Lifan, whose credentials are “formerly with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences”, whatever that means. Mr Zhang hovers over the next seven paragraphs, and then we go back to Xinhua. Readers who wade through another six paragraphs of gloop then find the “analysts” in action again.

This leaves readers with real stamina pondering an interesting question. In a story of this length, why were we not told who were the unnamed “analysts” who contributed so much of it? Mr Zhang may be an analyst but he is not “analysts”. I realise there are matters in Chinese politics on which careful people may not wish to speak in their own names. But nobody is going to get into trouble for saying nice things about Jiang Zemin.