Is the BBC Censoring Itself to Keep in China’s Good Graces? (See UPDATES 2A and 4 and Linked Future Post–Evidence Shows They Are Not)

NOTE: Go to Updates 2A and 4 below, and to this corrections post for the full nature and extent of corrections to the original post, which begins below.
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Original Post

The southern Chinese city of Taishi has been the site of major rural uprisings in China recently.

RConversation links to a chilling UK Guardian account of the murder of a Chinese activist and beatings of journalists, and also cites other sources.

It is becoming very obvious that the Chinese government wants the rest of the world to know as little about Taishi uprising as possible.

In the course of studying this, I wanted to see where Taishi is on a Chinese map. Well, I haven’t done that yet because I saw this BBC link in a Google search on “taishi china map” (4th listing when I did the search), and wanted to read more:

So I went to the indicated BBC link and found the following:

Something becomes painfully obvious when comparing the Google entry and the current BBC article: The sentence that appears in the Google entry — “A villager walks past a row of riot police in Taishi, southern China” — was the description below the picture before it was changed to the non-descriptive one you see above (”A number of protests have erupted over government corruption.”).

How do I know? The word “Taishi” currently does not appear anywhere on the page, so the web page as it currently exists could not have generated the Google entry above.

It seems very unlikely to me that the change described would have been made in the ordinary course of editing without some kind of other influence coming into play.

So, I must ask: Is the BBC censoring its coverage to keep in China’s good graces? In this particular instance, did the Chinese government “suggest” that the BBC remove references to Taishi? Or did higher-ups at the BBC modify the description to head off a potential dispute with the government?

I still haven’t found where Taishi is on a Chinese map, but I am learning more than I wanted to know about where journalists are when it comes to shading stories to stay on the good side of tyrants.

It’s not like this kind of thing has never happened before:

• In 2003, shortly after US troops took control of Baghdad, CNN’s now-deposed Eason Jordan, in a New York Times op-ed column, admitted, as the linked piece indicates, that “knowledge of murder, torture, and planned assassinations were suppressed in order to maintain CNN’s Baghdad bureau.”
• The BBC, as Weapons of Mass Discussion noted and updated at the time, removed the word “terrorist” from its original reportage on the July London Subway bombings that contained the word. Perhaps World Affairs Editor John Simpson, referred to at the WMD update post, is up to his old tricks.

Apparently they have not learned, and perhaps never will, that accuracy and integrity are more important than access.

Shame on the BBC.
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UPDATE: From Radio Free Asia–”Chinese Authorities Arrest Rights Lawyer in ‘Test-Case’ Taishi Village” (excerpt is about halfway through the article), one can see why the Chinese government would prefer that “Taishi” not be mentioned:

The Taishi standoff, widely seen by Chinese scholars and the legal profession as a test of local governments’ commitment to village democracy and rule of law, began in July after a 100 million yuan (U.S. $12 million) land deal involving more than 2,000 mu (133 hectares) of village land.

Villagers and their lawyers said accounting procedures around the sale were not transparent, and they suspected Chen of embezzling public funds.

In clashes earlier this month, riot police ended a hunger strike and fired water cannon on protesters, many of them elderly, prompting widespread outrage among ordinary Chinese with access to news reports of the incident.

Alleged ‘white terror’

Last month, villagers fought against government attempts to stack the re-election committee in its favor, electing seven of their own candidates ahead of a key vote slated for Oct. 7 on whether village chief Chen Jinling should remain in office.

However, attempts by officials to scupper the campaign appear to have succeeded, with Friday’s vote reportedly cancelled and with all seven of the victorious candidates now having tendered their resignation.

Villagers reported a “white terror” campaign by township and district officials, who used personal and family ties, threats, banquets and a door-to-door signature campaign to derail support for Chen’s recall.

They said many villagers were persuaded to abandon their campaign in return for the release of detained fellow protesters, many of whom were in their seventies and eighties.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE 2: This BBC link covers what the Guardian got to first about the beating of Lu Banglie. But… The Guardian reporter says Lu Banglie is dead, while the Beeb says he’s “missing.” Read the UK Guardian article yourself and see if you think there is any chance Lu is still alive. UPDATE 2A, October 11: Well, this is certainly humiliating: I am happy to report that Lu Banglie is still alive, and regret to report that my reliance on the UK Guardian as a sole source about anything is dead. A BBC person tells me that “I hope you will agree we were right to be cautious about the first reports.” Uh, yeah.

UPDATE 3: Commenter #3 points to other stories where Taishi is mentioned in captioned pictures, and I appreciate the links. In light of this, I changed the title of this post to a question, because I believe the matters is still open to debate. As I pointed out at comment 4, I still don’t understand why the captioned description at the BBC link discussed in the post was changed AFTER the initial publication of the article, as clearly occurred.

UPDATE 4, October 11: Even though the question at UPDATE 3 stands, based on UPDATE 2A (Lu is still alive, though the Guardian wrote him off as dead) and that fact that the Beeb has mentioned Taishi in other reports, I believe that the Beeb ought to be given the benefit of the doubt.