With the Beijing Olympics fast approaching, the world’s attention will soon focus on the rapidly changing but still sensitive news media landscape in China.

At a media conference last week in Bangkok, Thailand, sponsored by the East-West Center of Honolulu, several starkly different visions of that landscape emerged. Some were optimistic, some pessimistic and some predicted that the future of news and media in China will be drastically different from anything seen before.

Among those speaking to the conference of journalists and researchers was a leading Chinese media reformer, a Hong Kong newspaper baron, a pioneer of the Chinese blogging revolution and several journalists tasked with reporting on the Olympic games.

There was considerable optimism about China and press freedoms. Some suggested that internal reform in China will eventually do away with overbearing state control of the media.

Others said that new media, or the “blogosphere,” make the debate over state control or interference irrelevant as consumers find other ways to get their news and information.

Journalists headed to the Olympics said they fear China’s preoccupation with making the games an absolute success will lead to aggressive but ultimately futile attempts to control what is reported.
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