Malcolm Moore
The Telegraph
March 3, 2013
In this northern Chinese village, there is a tale of two newspapers, an old fashioned media battle.
In the red corner is the Gaoying News, the official organ of the local government, filled with Communist party propaganda.
On the other side is something incredibly rare, considering China’s vice-like control over the media: a rebel newspaper.
Operating out of two rooms in a dilapidated pharmaceutical factory, and with a staff of four, the Voice of the People is a muckraking four-page freesheet that challenges everything the Gaoying News writes.
“We wanted to rebuke the lies of the official newspaper,” said He Jianguo, 44, a former pharmaceuticals salesman who has become one of the editors of the Voice of the People. “Because we have a saying here in China: if you repeat a lie 100 times, it becomes the truth.”
The Voice of the People may not show that China is ready to free the fourth estate, but it does show the space that ordinary Chinese now have to publicly express their criticism, call for justice and fight for their rights.
According to Mr He, the last three years have been the worst of times for Nangaoying.
The village, in a north east suburb of Shijiazhuang (pop. 10 million) had been a prosperous community of some 8,000 residents, many of whom worked at local factories making pharmaceuticals, glucose and fertiliser.
But in 2009, a new village chief, He Chunlu, was elected. Soon after the villagers were evicted and their land sold to property developers for luxury apartments.
Of the 8,000 villagers only 200 or so remain, their houses cut off from water. One villager, Chen Wenbo, speculated that the village chief sold the land to line his pockets.
“Our land was worth £200,000 a hectare,” he said. “But it sold for £80,000. There must have been kickbacks”.
The editors of the Voice of the People said they have not yet uncovered proof of the village chief’s corruption. But they have published photographic evidence of his wealth.
“We just waited outside his office and photographed his three new Audi cars. It was easy,” said Mr He with a grin. One of them, the Audi Q7 SUV, sells for between £100,000 and £250,000 in China.
He added that the village chief had won the election after throwing lavish banquets for 5,000 of the villagers. “But we did not publish that – it is standard practice in the countryside”.
The paper has laid out, in stark detail, how it claims the village chief is illegally funnelling money to his own private firm and how due process has been ignored in the eviction of the villagers.
One article included a diagram mapping out the village chief’s network of business interests and cronies.
“We do our research from the figures released by the industrial and business bureau, and from the tax office statistics,” said He Yanhong, 40, another of the paper’s editors (half of Nangaoying’s 8,000 residents share the surname He).
“We want to tell the people that they have a voice. A paper is old-fashioned, but we are hoping the villagers who read it will then spread our information over the internet,” said Ms He.
The editors said the Communist party is aware of the paper, but so far has decided not to squash it.
“The province’s Propaganda department knows about us. They ask us not to publish at particularly sensitive times. But otherwise we are too small and we do not earn any money, so we are under their radar,” said Mr He. The village chief has never acknowledged the existence of the Voice of the People.
Now the editors are campaigning for fresh elections in the village. “The village chief has outlasted the standard term,” said Mr He. “We were going to have an election on February 24, but they cancelled it the evening before”.
Meanwhile, the Gaoying News has stepped up the frequency of its publishing schedule, keen to win over the recalcitrant villagers.
“We have seen them taking photographs in the village occasionally,” said Mr He. “But their reporters have never interviewed anyone in the village. They mostly publish official news”.
A spokesman for the official paper declined to comment on its rival. “We have been tricked many times by fake journalists,” he said.
