An ethical dilemma for literary magazines

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Reportage launch issue, 1999

The revelation that Reportage, a magazine devoted to non-fiction, charged for the placement of complimentary articles, was greeted with a mixture of shocked outrage and jaded indifference. Although the “pay-to-print” phenomenon is nothing new, it’s frowned upon by GAPP. And above all, you’re not supposed to talk about it.

The magazine itself was the focus of additional debate. To some, the name Reportage calls up memories of an influential non-fiction journal published in the 1980s, so this scandal is particularly severe. To others, the 21st Century edition, founded nearly a decade after the initial Reportage folded, is a pretender that doesn’t measure up to the reputation of its predecessor, so ethical lapses are only to be expected. Interestingly, the current Reportage was born out of different literary magazine, Contemporary Authors, whose most recent incarnation was also involved in a “pay-to-print” scandal this year (see below).

Although the phenomenon is widespread in China’s publishing industry, commentator Wei Yingjie says that Reportage may have been driven to sell articles for cash by reasons other than simple greed. In a sarcastic response to the China Youth Daily exposé, Wei suggests that any magazine devoted to reportage will inevitably reach a point where the only way to survive is to compromise its integrity. Good riddance, he says.

“Reportage” should have been done away with long ago

by Wei Yingjie

On November 20, when China Youth Daily ran the article “‘National Publication’ Sells Article Space for 1,000 yuan per 1,000 characters,” my first reaction was bafflement. Not because of the exposure of Reportage‘s dirty deeds; I simply found it odd that this newspaper had taken a sudden interest in the “pay-to-print” phenomenon. Isn’t that an open secret in the industry? Isn’t selling off pages just day-to-day business at those key periodicals?

Sure, I’ll admit that it isn’t proper to think that. As illegal dealings clearly prohibited by law, paid articles and compensated news should be relentlessly exposed, and no exposure comes too late. Hence, didn’t the newspaper display an utterly uncompromising attitude by turning over so many column inches to this report? Maybe the magazine’s executive editor responded without batting an eyelash because of that same indifference: “China Youth Daily knows the way things are because we’re both in the same line of work. Name me someone who doesn’t do it.” The guy’s in trouble because those unwritten rules haven’t been legitimized as “written rules.”

But there’s another thing: it’s not really accurate to call Reportage a “national publication.” The magazine was founded in 2000* (it is unrelated to an earlier publication of the same name) out of Hubei’s Contemporary Writers (当代作家, some sources say “Contemporary Literature,” 当代文学*) and is published under the authority of Changjiang Literature and Arts Press. In 2002, the publisher invited the China Reportage Association to assume editing duties, and the magazine moved north to Beijing. But the magazine still lists itself under the administration of Hubei’s Provincial Administration of Press and Publication. The magazine is hardly a “national publication” and might not enjoy the same sort of “consideration.”


The depths to which Reportage has fallen should come as no surprise. It has little reputation (who’s heard of it before?) and its circulation is pitifully small. Financial support is hard to find, and although it’s attached to an official sponsor, being able to pay its own way would be nice. However, there is only one asset a magazine never lacks: pages. When it encounters economic difficulties, resisting the lure of cash could be difficult.

Scandal has visited the magazine before. In May, 2004, editor Li Bingyin, from the China Reportage Association, resigned in a fit of pique due to a clash of goals. According to media reports, Li fought to run a weighty, serious, high-class literary magazine, but “the publisher was looking for profit.” Li showed another edition of Reportage (second half of the month), put out by the same publisher, whose cover stories included “A Spectrum of Abnormal Killers,” and “The Provincial Secretary Seduced by a Hair Salon Girl.” Li called the magazine a “provincial gossip rag.” (China Youth Daily, 2004.05.11) It is quite possible that this controversy brought about a transition at the magazine, sending it down the “pay-to-print” road.

One other mortal wound, a failing intrinsic to “reportage” as a literary form, has brought Reportage to its current fate. See, you could call reportage journalism, but it’s got literary qualities; you could call it literature, but you’re also insisting that characters and events be true and journalistic in nature. Literature can be fictionalized, but journalism does not permit imagination. These internal contradictions practically invite criticism onto reportage. It’s not written like science, but if literature is to “report,” to whom does it report, and who is doing the reporting? Moreover, looking back on its development, we see from the very first, reportage had a strong utilitarian streak: it was a servant of ideology and policy, and hence in today’s market economy, it easily finds a role as a servant of corporate bosses and individual government officials.

Reportage really ought to be called “documentary literature” (纪实文学, “literature recording facts”), but that goal would, in my opinion, be difficult to achieve. Coincidentally, I have in my hands a copy of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945, which counts as real documentary literature. The Foreword to this book contains a line that I made a point of copying down: “The dialogue in the book is not fictional. It comes from transcripts, records and stenographic notes, and the memory of the participants.” In my utterly shaken state of mind, I wrote down the following impression: “Perhaps only Chinese reportage writers can truly comprehend the enormity of the difficulty — because it would be pretty difficult to pick a few genuine lines of dialogue out of Chinese reportage.” That is the delicate state of Chinese reportage today.

In these circumstances, is it only by chance that “the country’s only reportage periodical” has degenerated into a bastion of soft advertising? To tell you the truth, anyone taking over the magazine might think: “Since most writers are submitting puff pieces* anyway, why not make some money off of them?” In my opinion, then, we’re faced with the problem of clearing out periodicals that have violated the law, and a second problem of whether such a magazine deserves to keep on living.

In the summer of 2002, noted author Yuan Ying wrote a letter to Li Bingyin in which he said, “The past few years, I’ve seen too much pseudo-reportage that’s paid journalism, or that’s so fake, overblown, vacuous, and puffed up it looks like advertising. This frequently discourages me….I have always believed that the lifeblood of reportage lies in soul, truth, and writing (魂, 真, 文).” With “soul” and “truth” completely absent from today’s reportage, leaving only an extreme situation in which writing glosses over its faults, why not call an end to its historic mission? Or at least erase the word “reportage” from its body, giving it a new face when it is reborn from the ashes.

I’ll go further and say that most literary magazines that share the same plight as Reportage should be relieved of duty. Their publication license numbers are worthless: the system doesn’t support them but leaves them to fend for themselves. A magazine can scrape by and essentially become a cultural beggar by relying on a group of authors who are unviable in the marketplace, or it can set about putting its publication license and page count to good use by peddling literary influence for money. Killing them would allow one or two big literary magazines to remain, and would give in-system authors (particularly those who don’t go online) something to reminisce over. The rest might as well be turned over to the marketplace or simply shut down.

In the Internet age, if only to conserve paper, literary magazines should make their exit.


Notes

  1. The inaugural issue was dated 1999, as shown in the image.
  2. Commentators seem to have used different sources for the previous name of Reportage. Magshow and other online periodical indices give the license number CN42-1588/I and state, “Name change: Contemporary Authors (original) Reportage (current)” (刊名变迁: 《当代作家》(原) 《报告文学》(现) ). For more on a new incarnation of Contemporary Authors, see below.
  3. “Puff pieces” is 歌德文学 in the source. This is apparently the author’s own contraction of 歌功颂德文学, since “Goethe literature” doesn’t really make sense here.
* * *

The title Contemporary Authors (当代作家) was recently revived for a pay-to-print scam. In August, the magazine released an announcment about a new “membership program” that seemed designed to prey on aspiring writers’ desire to see their names in print.

For 200 yuan a year, readers could become “basic members,” guaranteeing them publication in Contemporary Authors (or a similar literary magazine), submission critiques, and preferred treatment in contests. An “intermediate membership” cost 380 yuan a year; after two years, intermediate members would have the chance to be nominated for membership in a provincial Writers’ Association. A “high-level membership” (aka “contract author”) cost 1000 yuan a year was good for one recommendation to a provincial-level literary journal, as well as the magazine’s assistance in holding publicity events at the Great Hall of the People.

Curiously, the announcement made a big deal about the magazine’s physical appearance (220g card stock for the cover, 70g copy paper inside) and well-placed readership (city-level governments and above, “famous universities,” and writers’ associations).

It also named well-known essayist and critic Lei Da as editor-in-chief, to his considerable surprise:

Yesterday night my friend told me about the Contemporary Authors literary club that has been advertising online. It’s done great business and has made tens of thousands already, with applications continuing to come in. But I couldn’t believe what he told me next: he said that the editor of the magazine, and the head of the club, was none other than myself. I had to go online to see for myself, and then I couldn’t speak for my anger and astonishment. If I’m editor, why haven’t I seen a printed copy of this “220g special paper” magazine I edit? I’ve never heard of Wu Ruowen [listed contact] or the club, so how did I become advisor and editor-in-chief? And if the publication was run under the authority of the “China Folk Arts Society,” and published by China Int’l Culture Press with the cooperation of People’s Literature and Selected Essays, among others, why had no one seen it? I don’t know where they’ll get the six issues they’re supposed to give to members — magic? If it really exists, then that means that I’ve neglected my duties as editor-in-chief for at least a year, right?

I’m still choked with rage, but I implore you, don’t force your will and interests onto an innocent person. Stop this crazy game at once! Otherwise, you’ll be responsible for the consequences!

Lei Da

September 8

The day after Lei Da’s blog post, the Beijing Times called up the Contemporary Authors offices, and was informed that the magazine had not yet launched and had temporarily stopped accepting new members. The office staffer knew nothing about Lei Da or the position of editor-in-chief.


UPDATE: More on the Reportage scandal at China Media Project.

Links and Sources
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