February 25, 2015
by Alex Hill
Every morning, my workday begins with a selection of stories. “Human Rights Advancing in China” is a typical headline. “Building Prosperity in Tibet” or “A Step Up for Chinese Democracy” are other possibilities. There is usually at least one blistering denunciation of Japan, along with a few promising economic forecasts.
I am a journalist, and not for the Onion. The magazine I work for is one of several foreign-language rags published under the eminent leadership of the Communist Party of China. Along with dozens of other “foreign experts” at the Death Star—as an English colleague nicknamed the gray block of concrete cubes on the west side of Beijing where we work—our job is ostensibly to introduce the realities of China and its socialist democracy to the rest of the world.
The Death Star is just a small patch in a constellation of foreign-language propaganda outlets. The Communist Party controls newspapers, magazines, book publishers, websites, wire services, and television and radio stations. Some are explicitly state-owned; others are nominally independent but rely on government funding. Together they employ hundreds of foreigners as writers, editors, performers, and news anchors. All of them share the patriotic duty of broadcasting the truth about New China.
My career in the propaganda machine began during the annual scramble for a work permit. I had already drunk my way through a few years in the Chinese ESL-industrial complex when I chanced across an ad for a job in the media. The pay wasn’t great, but at least I wouldn’t have to supervise children. After wowing the managers with my journalistic credentials (two articles in a high school newspaper) and a very perfunctory interview, I was duly furnished with a work visa, desk, computer, and stack of business cards that identified me as a “Copy Editor/Reporter.”
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