Paparazzi tricks for journalists

Some officials use excuses not to talk to Chinese journalists, and the most common one is making the reporter wait. They know very few journalists can wait an entire afternoon for a phone interview that may never come.

So journalists under deadline pressures have to use unconventional methods to get news. This includes taping interviews with officials without their knowledge, because it is almost impossible to pin them down for comment when they know they are being recorded.

China Central Television reporters received a blunt rejection last week when they tried to talk to a Shanghai official about the planned Disneyland project. In the end, the cameraman got a quote from the official, by using a hidden camera.