Censored in Beijing: a correspondent watches himself fade to black

The Monitor's Peter Ford knows censorship happens all the time on his China beat. But when it happened to him in an interview with CNN, he felt punched in the gut.

Its not as if Ive been physically assaulted, I grant you. But I certainly feel violated that nauseous sensation when you realize your home has been burgled.

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Ive been censored.

One moment I was on the TV screen, a guest of CNNs On China talk show discussing press freedom in China, and the next I wasnt. The screen went black. The Chinese censors had pulled the plug. Where there was light, they brought darkness. Nobody in mainland China could watch the program.

Well of course, you will say. You are in China. What do you expect? The freedom to talk publicly about the lack of freedom?

And, of course, I know perfectly well that almost all of my Chinese colleagues are censored, or forced to self-censor, every day.

But this was my first time. And the first time is different.

As well as my day job being The Christian Science Monitors correspondent in China, I am also president of the Foreign Correspondents Club of China. That means people come to me when they want to know about foreign correspondents working conditions in China.

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Censored in Beijing: a correspondent watches himself fade to black