Dateline received an email from Channel Seven which openly refers to "the five forbidden topics" the Chinese Government doesn't want journalists covering the Games to broach.

Dateline has submitted a request for information from the Beijing International Media Centre (BIMC) seeking clarification on the "five forbidden topics". The program has not yet had a response to this request

Last week, George Negus probes managing director of Channel Seven's Asian operations, Doug Fraser, on what the topics are and what would happen to journalists who ignored the missive and reported on them.

Watch video: Interview with Doug Fraser

Web-exclusive: Extended Dateline interview with Doug Fraser

Read the email

Have Your Say: How should journalists react to Channel Seven's attempts to censor media coverage of the Games?

TRANSCRIPT

Just across Tiananmen Square is that other historical icon, the Forbidden City, home of China's emperors. For centuries ordinary Chinese citizens were forbidden to come here.

These days, as you can see, it is a major tourist attraction. But it seems that word 'forbidden' hasn't exactly disappeared off the still-Communist government's radar in the same way that Mao did a few years ago.

In fact, so far as media reporting the Olympics is concerned, this very odd email Dateline received from the Channel Seven company facilitating the Games coverage actually talks here openly about "the five forbidden topics" that they say the Chinese Government doesn't want covered.

This email doesn't spell out what the topics are but it does make it clear that if Dateline wanted to report on them - whatever they are - they wouldn't be able to help. So what are these so-called five forbidden topics causing our friends at Channel Seven so much angst?

Doug Fraser is managing director of Channel Seven's Asian operations. It was his chief operating officer from their Beijing company, BMC - a joint venture with the Chinese - who sent Dateline the curiously conditional email.

GEORGE NEGUS: Doug, thanks for seeing us as I realise you are very, very busy times for you. I need your help to clear up something which has come across my desk. I'm pretty long in the tooth as a journalist but I got a letter from BMC which I found alarming, not to put too strong a word on it.

I don't want to spring this on you but I've got a copy of it, which you're quite welcome to have. I've just read the thing that alarmed me as a journalist. "I was wondering if you're able to elaborate, please, on the topics you plan to cover in Beijing."

Our program is not a sports program, right? There's a paragraph that said, "Officially all media are welcome to come to China if the topics being covered relate to the Olympic Games." That sounded like a restraint, a constriction on what we do here.

Later on down the page it says, "While we try to stay out of the politics and concentrate on the issues at hand, it is something unavoidable. With so much time and money invested in this project we need to protect the investment and its partners." Then this next paragraph I'd like you to clear up for me.

"Should you be coming to Beijing to cover Olympic-related topics, then we would be only too happy to assist you"with your requirements, but should you be coming to Beijing to produce stories on any of the forbidden topics, then I'm sorry, but we're not going to be able to offer support at this time." What are these forbidden topics?

DOUG FRASER, MANAGING DIRECTOR, SEVEN NETWORK ASIA LIMITED: I'm not sure. There is an organisation set up by the Beijing Government for these Olympics called the BIMC. And they're responsible for international news media in terms of providing them with stories and assisting them with doing their stories and providing them with what they do here. Our broadcast base here is an independent broadcast base. We don't provide any assistance on what stories you might want to cover, it's up to the journalists themselves.

GEORGE NEGUS: But "if BMC" - the document says here - signed by your chief operating officer - "if BMC were seen to be supporting an international program whose intentions were to cover any of the five forbidden topics" - now your operating officer seems to know what they are - "the repercussions for BMC and its clients would be disastrous for the Olympic project." That's pretty clear-cut. What we are trying to find out from your people was what are these five forbidden topics? Is it the dreadful T-word? It is it Tibet? Is it Tiananmen Square? Is it human rights generally? What is it that you couldn't help us with if we decided we wanted to cover it?

DOUG FRASER: Again, look, I'm not sure what those five forbidden topics are, to be honest with you, and we would always refer anything of this nature through to the government-established BIMC.

GEORGE NEGUS: So if I did say to you, if I was using your facilities - which we're not, as it turns out - but if I wanted to use your facilities and said to you, "I'm not prepared to tell you what I'm doing. I'm a journalist. I'm doing a story that's related to protests that are going to occur at the Games, protests in Tiananmen Square," if I said, "I do need your help, I do need your facilities and we're prepared to pay for your assistance," would you give it?

DOUG FRASER: What we do is - again, we are an independent broadcast base and we don't ask you what your covering, you are using our base, you are free to broacast.

GEORGE NEGUS: But they did ask us what we were covering.

DOUG FRASER: That goes back to very early this year and I'm not sure what the purpose of that document is.

GEORGE NEGUS: It sounded to me like it was a warning, like if you come here and use our facilities and cause us a heck of a lot of strife and start doing stuff that is politically sensitive, basically stuff that the government doesn't like, I mean, it's pretty clear.

DOUG FRASER: It's really not our job to censor, to provide any censorship of the media. Once we hand over our studios to the international media it's up to them what they broadcast.

GEORGE NEGUS: So why this note?

DOUG FRASER: I don't know. I don't know where that note comes from and I don’t know what purpose is behind it.

GEORGE NEGUS: It looks like it did come from your operation.

DOUG FRASER: It does, it has and I am certainly happy to have a look and answer those questions separately to you.

GEORGE NEGUS: I’m trying to get the answers now actually but I guess the point is, your joint venture is in the state of suspended animation, do these same rules apply to you now, obviously I could see if there was a Chinese involvement it would be difficult for you, is it still difficult for you, would you refuse to cut back any of these ‘mysterious’ five forbidden topics?

DOUG FRASER: We are not covering any topics all we are doing is providing the broadcast facilities, so we provide a studio, we provide cameras, we provide the transmission, so it is really up to the broadcasters to decide what they are covering and to either find out from the BIMC what they can cover and get assistance from the BIMC to cover what they want to cover.

GEORGE NEGUS: So nobody else..if I was to say to you now that we do want to be here during the Olympics, we do need your assistance, would these constraints, these restrictions still be placed on my freedom.

DOUG FRASER: Not at all, I mean we don’t, we are not a censor on behalf of the government, we just provide the facilities, it is up to you to produce what you want to produce, and SBS is producing out of this facility.

GEORGE NEGUS: The News and Sports people are?

DOUG FRASER: Yes.

GEORGE NEGUS: But Dateline is not a News or Sports program and we do different sort of stuff. So was this a mistake, was this a misinterpretation?

DOUG FRASER: I would think so and very, very happy to have a look into this and find out why it was sent but I don’t have any knowledge of five forbidden topics unless that has been expressed in the media.

GEORGE NEGUS: We have been unable to find out what they are ourselves.

DOUG FRASER: I am not aware of five forbidden topics but I would invite you to and have a talk to the government set up, Beijing International Media Centre.

GEORGE NEGUS: You’re a business man, is it possible therefore for me to put to you hypothetically at least because of a document like this, that 7 BMC or 7 Network Asia or actually putting their business interests, by writing a letter like this, ahead of media freedom?

DOUG FRASER: Well I don’t think so because the chief operating officer is an operational person, so just like you I don’t know of any forbidden topics.

GEORGE NEGUS: A friendly warning is what it sounded like to me.

DOUG FRASER: I like to think that by reading that quickly and it is first time I’ve seen it, that it is all about us not in a position to provide you with your news stories, we’re not fixing news stories for you, we’re not providing topics.

GEORGE NEGUS: In other words, you not responsible for anything that we would do, your providing facilities and in the meantime you can’t help me with the five forbidden topics, your as much in the dark as we are.

DOUG FRASER: I’m as much in the dark as you are and I haven’t seen anything issued by the government to say that there are five forbidden topics and if you haven’t either, I would assume that there is not.

GEORGE NEGUS: Can I just read a quote to you from the IOC president himself, “I believe that the Games are a great catalyst for change for China itself, the Games will open up China to the scrutiny of the world, thanks to the 25,000 media being present. These media will not only report on sports performances, they will also report and write on the country and this will have a good effect on the evolution of China.” Now even today as we speak there are headlines in other parts of the world including our own Australia, saying that the Chinese have recanted on the whole idea of press freedom during the Olympics, do you think it exists?

DOUG FRASER: Well we have set up this international broadcast base as an independent broadcast base, so whether broadcasters who are using our base are Rights holders or if they are not Rights holders, they are free to use the base here and they have been free to broadcast to the rest of the world.

GEORGE NEGUS: It sounds like for a while yet at least, politics per say will remain a tricky issue.

DOUG FRASER: I think politics at every Olympics is a tricky issue and for me personally I think that it is disappointing that there is so much politics that surround the Olympics, but this is my third Olympics and while I do find that when the Olympics start, the day after the opening ceremony it becomes about the athletes and it becomes about celebrating sport, it becomes about celebrating youth and achievement and let’s look forward to when the athletes take over the city and politics gets left behind.

GEORGE NEGUS: By the way, I didn’t realize you hadn’t seen that document, I wasn’t trying to spring it on you, but I didn’t realise you hadn’t seen it. But thank you very much for being so cooperative.

DOUG FRASER: It has been a pleasure George. Thank you.




Reporter
GEORGE NEGUS

Camera
JORGE ZARATE
LAU KWOK LING

Editors
NICK O'BRIEN
DAVID POTTS

Fixer
LI LI

Producer
PETER CHARLEY