FT keeps its English and Chinese operations separate in Beijing

Nicole Levy of Capital New York writes that Geoff Dyer, the Financial Times‘s Beijing bureau chief from 2008 to 2011, explained Thursday night some of the best practices the paper has developed while reporting in the country’s restrictive media environment.

Levy writes, “For example: The F.T. keeps its English-language operation in a separate building from F.T. Chinese.

“‘As a general rule when I was in Beijing, I deliberately tried not to know what was going on with F.T. Chinese,’ Dyer said of the segregation. ‘I didn’t want to get in that kind of game where you’re self-guessing and questioning yourself and thinking the kind of things they have to think about whether they’re going to get blocked or not.’

“Western news organizations have grappled of late with how best to report on and in China, and the topic was front-of-mind for many on Thursday. Earlier in the day, Bloomberg L.P. chairman Peter T. Grauer had said his company is considering an end to its investigative efforts in the country. Sales of the company’s financial data terminals have fallen sharply in China since Bloomberg published a story in June 2012 about the family wealth of an incoming Communist Party chief.

“F.T. Asia editor David Pilling said that Chinese officials are generally ‘thick skinned’ to allegations made against them, ‘even when names are named,’ but the 2012 Bloomberg and New York Times stories that sparked backlash from the Chinese government did so because they irrefutably nailed their targets with public documents.”

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