News Probe: What Does It Tell Us about Chinese Journalism Today?

Abstract

Investigative journalism is a genre of journalism which was until some 15 years ago widely thought of as an Anglophone phenomenon. Yet, sini.:e thc early 1990s Chinese investigative journalists have had notable achievcments and rheir work suggests promise of further surprises. The CCTV investigative programme News Probe deploys techniques and approaches that are apparently very similar to those in use in the Anglophone investigative journa­lism, but are there differences? And how may we account for the differeni.:es? The author showed four editions of News Prohe (translated) 10 two leading produ­cers and commissioners ofBritish television investigative journalism and asked rhem to comment on them; he provides their evaluation and then interprets the difterences iden­tified ancl places his interpretation within a context of current wcstern scholarship on the Chinese media. That the investigative genre now cxists in societies very different from thosc of which it was supposed to be uniquely a product givcs rise to questions about the con<litions that make for investigative journalism, the power of the media and their social functions in different societies.