Timothy Garton Ash at the guardian thinks there aren’t enough foreign reporters in China, and this is not our only problem:

As they compete fiercely for readers and viewers, mainstream western media tend to stick with a few stories that are familiar and interesting to them. They report so much about Tibet not because they are ideological China-bashers but because their consumers are fascinated by and care about Tibet. Yes, their news stories on China’s domestic politics tend to the sensational and the negative – so do their stories about the domestic politics of their own countries. Those who edit and select these stories are just following the market-oriented rules of their trade. If it bleeds, it leads.

obviously, correct. I said so before. We all want to hear stories we are already familiar with. We really don’t want to take new ideas and facts with our coffee, thank you. (isn’t this paragraph ironic? hmmm).

But then again, if this is the way things are, I’m bound to ask what difference will more foreign reporters make? wouldn’t it be just more of the same? 

There are exceptions, of course. Garton Ash brings the example of a BBC report about land seizure in a certain Chinese village (Sorry I wasn’t able to find the original report). These are the kind of stories for which journalism exists – exactly the sort of things bloggers just can’t do. Too often, however, the report will jump a bit hastily from the particular case of a wronged farmer/worker/activist to a general conclusion along the “China is on the verge of collapse” line of arguments.*

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t believe it should be done otherwise. Those stories are of interest to the international media particularly because someone thinks they have wider implications, and so general conclusions must be drawn. Thing is, village riots, local conflicts, petty crimes etc are all the business of the local media, first and foremost. The work of the local media in China is a whole other issue, and too big to start pondering about tonight. Generally speaking, the Chinese media shows more will and maybe is given more liberty, to deal with that sort of stories. It is naturally far from being enough but you’d really to be blind to be here a while and not see the change that the local media has undergone in the last 5-10 years. Eventually, it will be up to them to do the real reporting. As Ronald Soong so accurately said not long ago: The western media no longer matters.

Nevertheless, there are surpringly few foreign journalists in China, considering it’s gigantic size, its diversity and its central global role. When I got my own accreditation in November I was told there are about 700 accredited foreign journalists here, including technical staff. There are probably many more non-accredited but its interesting to make the comparison with Israel, a country that gets just as much international news coverage (though why I never fully understood). According to the Government press office, there are about 700 accredited foreign journalists in Israel, and probably few dozens unaccredited, and others who are based in the area ruled by the Palestinian authority. Isralestine is about 28,000 square meters in land area – somewhat bigger than Beijing municipality (though much less in population). so there you have it. Not enough jurnos here despite how it would seem on those Friday nights at the bookworm.

*This isn’t referring to the BBC report, which I haven’t seen. I sincerely apologize to the reporter(s) if this isn’t the case in that report, and trust that none of my two readers has anything to do with the BBC anyway.