WorldCity Business Magazine

Defending a freedom

by Ken Roberts

In the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, a journalist named Ching Cheong was arrested in April after seeking transcripts of interviews that criticized the government’s bloody actions at Tiananmen Square in 1989.

He has been jailed ever since.

Chinese officials accuse him of spying for foreign governments. However, that is certainly a smoke screen since the Hong Kong-based reporter for the Singapore Straits had earlier covered important government meetings in Beijing without arrest.

This time, however, he sought access to interviews with former Communist Party chief Zhao Ziyang. Zhao died earlier this year, having lived his final years as a virtual outcast because of his attempts to stop the Tiananmen Square Massacre. The Chinese jailed Ching not in punishment for something he did, but in fear of something he might do, something unlikely to even qualify as criminal.

I have been monitoring the case because it serves as a reminder: As the Communist country sheds the shackles of a government-run economy for one driven by the private sector, it is up to us to show China the virtues of irrevocable freedoms.

In our part of the world, where a free and robust press is constitutionally guaranteed by the very first amendment, in fact we call Ching’s case one of “prior restraint.” And we denounce it for its “chilling effect” on any moves toward democracy and the people’s “right to know.” Instinctively, we know it is wrong be it in China, Cuba, North Korea or the Middle East.

And while the details may diverge from those of the Ching case, it is also wrong when it happens in the United States.

I would hope the court’s decision to imprison New York Times reporter Judith Miller for failing to reveal a source is as repugnant toyou as it is to me, a 46-year-old who signed up for a paper route at age14 and has remained in the publishing business since.

Miller wrote no articles based on what the source told her. She is charged with no crime. Rather, embracing a journalist’s sacred trust, she has refused to identify the Bush Administration official who disclosed the name of a CIA operative, perhaps in violation of federal law.

Not only is the court’s reaction particularly punitive, the case reeks of a government paranoia reminiscent of the Nixon White House.

For starters, it is likely that the government already has the name of the source, possibly from Robert Novak, the columnist and TV personality who first “outed” the CIA operative. Novak, who is generally friendly to the Bush Administration, named the CIA operative in a column attacking the woman’s husband, who had called into question the president’s rationale for starting the Iraq war. Novak has acknowledged that he obtained his information from a confidential source. Yet unlike Miller, who never even wrote the story, he is not in jail.

The other surprise twist in this case is Time magazine’s decision to give in to a court order and turn over the notes of its reporter, Matthew Cooper, who spoke with the source. Cooper may escape jail time but Time’s action sends out the frightening message that it will not protect its sources.

Today Ching Cheong and Judith Miller sit in jail, neither having enjoyed the benefit of a trial.

China has a long way to go before it enjoys the freedoms we take for granted in this country. Perhaps we should be more careful about taking them for granted ourselves.