The BBC and China

Does it matter that senior public officials in Shanghai think the BBC is hostile to China?

I've just finished a workshop for the Press Association with a delegation from the city in preparation for Shanghai Expo 2010 .

My brief was to give them the lowdown on the Western media and offer some advice on how to deal with the inevitable increased press interest in Shanghai and China.

When I started talking about the BBC - explaining how it is publicly funded, independent and a trusted source of news - the questions started. 'Why is the BBC hostile to China?' came the first question. 'How can the BBC be independent when it is centrally funded?' came the second.

A section of the workshop that was supposed to last five minutes, went on for an hour. Every time I tried to move on I was dragged back into the 'BBC issue'. There seemed to be a genuine feeling of hurt that China was not getting a fair crack of the whip with one of the most respected news organisations in the world.

When one delegate asked how an organisation can try and deal with a hostile news organisation (a.k.a.the BBC) I tried to emphasise the importance of starting a dialogue; of trying to build relationships. The delegate told me he had sent numerous invitations to the local BBC correspondent but to no avail. OK the local correspondent has to make his own decisions on the ground, but you could understand the frustration.

This was a group of shrewd and sophisticated individuals. Very able and very senior. Whatever the ideological differences there may be between the West and China, it was easy to understand their sense of injustice. They feel they are not being given a platform to put an alternative viewpoint on how life is in their country.

They are immensley proud of their achievements - both social and economic. We see their media as strictly controlled and subject to censorship. They see their media as having a strong sense of 'social responsibility' - a duty not to report things that would alarm the general populace.

Jonathan Grun, editor of the Press Association picked up on this point during the workshop and gave illustrations of our own 'social responsibility' - for example in not reporting the fine details of how terrorists build their bombs - detail outlined in open court, but which would be irresponsible to disseminate to a wider audience. Responsible reporting about swine flu is an important issue for news organisations. We have a duty not to cause panic.

Is this not the same thing - but to a lesser degree?

My new friends from Shanghai clearly want their voices to be heard - do we not have a duty to listen, even if we may disagree with the message?

It was a similar story on a recent trip to Moscow where I was working with journalists and translators at the Russian state news agency Ria Novosti.

They are investing heavily in their English and European language output because they want to be able to put over a Russian perspective on stories about their own country. They also want a louder voice on wider global issues.

Over dinner the guys from Ria Novosti said something that really struck home with me: Why is your (Western) view of the world the right one? If your version of democracy is so successful why is there so much crime, social deprevation and corruption?

It's a hard question to answer - one perhaps best left to the diplomats.