While the death of a young journalist reporting on a construction project was widely reported in the Chinese press and social media, critical questions have been raised around the details of her death - some of which indicate that important information is still censored even when a story is widely publicised.
The following is a CPJ Blog post by Sumit Galhotra, CPJ Asia Program Research Associate:
Twenty-four-year-old Bai Lu was just four days into her new job as a journalist at the Urumqi Evening Post when she was killed. She and her colleague, Chen Aiying, were struck by a bulldozer while reporting at a major construction project on April 18, 2013 in the city of Urumqi in Xinjiang province. Chen was seriously injured.
While Bai’s death was widely reported in the Chinese press and social media, critical questions have been raised around the details of her death – some of which indicate that important information is still censored even when a story is widely publicized.
The construction site where Bai was killed was reportedly part of an infrastructure project in Urumqi that was designed to ease traffic congestion in the city, according to the Hong Kong University-based China Media Project. The report cited an unnamed source who said that local government officials had violated procedures on the construction project. The report did not offer further details.
Read the full story on CPJ’s website.