No stopping daylight by killing roosters

The dawning of the new media age means officials need better interaction with the media and the public. However, despite the principle of "maintaining good relations with and making good use of the media" put forward by the Party and the government, many officials still have deep-rooted misapprehension about the media. It is necessary to correct this so they can interact better.

In some cities or provinces, officials consider so-called negative publicity as something evil. Whenever there is any report of bad news within their region, the first thing that comes to their minds is how to prevent it from spreading. To that purpose they employ all kinds of resources, use personal influence, even administrative resources, to intervene to try and stop the news spreading.

This is wrong. China's media outlets, especially the mainstream ones, play the role of recording social progress, expressing public opinion and supervising power for social justice in the nation's development process. By seeking to curb or control bad news, the officials actually ignore public opinion. That in the long run will make it impossible for the government and the media to treat each other with sincerity.