China today set up a committee to investigate journalistic misconduct amid its controversial move to censor official media in the backdrop of a French journalist's article over the condition of the Muslim Uyghur minorities in Xinxiang province.
The All-China Journalists Association, a state-run body, established a national journalistic ethics committee here.
Nearly all provincial-level regions in China have established such committees, as required in a statement by the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the association in September.
The committees will supervise journalists working for both traditional and new media, promoting journalistic ethics and the healthy development of the industry through various measures including naming and shaming those guilty of misconduct and demanding open apologies from wrongdoers.
The association called for close cooperation between the committees and other related authorities as well as the leading role of the national journalistic ethics committee in the work of local committees, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
This followed by announcement of Hunan province which clamped 10 rules to regulate media including publication of reports without official verification as well as paid news coverage.
The regulations warrant the media professionals against publishing information or rumours from the Internet before verifying them. Media should not publish news stories declaring any parties guilty before the courts pass judgement.
Though expanded rapidly in recent years, both print and television media largely remained government controlled.
The state media, however, has been challenged by rapid growth of social media as people posts news of various events in the microblogs. China mobile internet connections this year reached 594 million, the biggest in the world.
On Saturday, China declared that it would not renew press credentials for Ursula Gauthier, a longtime Beijing-based journalist for the French news magazine L'Obs, effectively expelling her for criticising the Communist giant's treatment of its Muslim Uighur minority in Xinjiang.
