< China’s Blue Pencil   Friday, March 17, 2006  BOB GARFIELD:
From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media. Brooke
Gladstone is away this week. I'm Bob Garfield. A sudden
flourishing of investigative journalism in China has created a
sort of Wild West atmosphere – crusading reporters and editors
armed with lurid accounts of corruption and official malfeasance
blazing away at the powers that be. But this Wild West is taking
place in the authoritarian East, where communist party officials
have made examples of newspapers and websites deemed too quick
on the draw. Such repression points up the difficulty – and
sometimes absurdity – of establishing a free press in a
fascistic society, and that inherent conflict is also apparent
in the teaching of journalism in China. Xiguang Li is executive
dean of the School of Journalism and Communication at Beijing's
Tsinghua University. He joins us now. Professor Li, welcome to
On the Media.  XIGUANG LI: Thank you.  BOB GARFIELD:
Periodically in China, papers or websites