In 1995, He Longsheng, a Chinese literature graduate, came with a dream to Guangzhou, an economic engine house in China today, to work as an entry-level photographer with Nanfang (Southern) Daily. Young and ambitious as he was, he never expected that eight years later, he should become the director of Visual Department at Xin-Jing-Bao (New Beijing Daily), a new metropolitan newspaper launched by the Nanfang Newspaper Group in Beijing, to supervise 16 photographers, 4 picture editors, 10 art and graphic editors and 10 technicians in 2003. That year, He was just 33!

　

    In the eyes of some westerners, Chinese photographers are government employees working in ideological areas for propaganda purpose. But this is not the case now. When comparing the media environment in recent years with that in the early 1980s, Hu Shuli, editor of Cai-Jing (Fortune and Economy) magazine and the World Press Review’s 2003 International Editor of the Year[1], said: “Generally speaking, there are far more opportunities for the news media and journalists to play the role of watchdog than before. It is true that some officially recognized mainstream media have not fully played their role of supervision, but then there have emerged many more so–called ‘fringe’ media in China today. They are not party and government organs and thus not considered mainstream.”[2]　

　

Things have changed since the mid 1990’s, when the reform in China extended to the media business, which gave way to the launch of many more newspapers and magazines and finally changed the role of photojournalism in China.

　

　

    Spot news coverage in print media is the most significant example to show the change in China’s photojournalism. For many years, spot news photos were rarely seen in print media, since they were usually associated with such negative happenings as fire, traffic accident, airplane crash, etc., and were regarded as inappropriate to highlight in pictures. In 1992, an airplane crashed in Guilin, one of China’s most popular tourist attractions, killing all the passengers, many of whom being tourists from overseas. Mike Fiela, the then AFP Beijing bureau photographer, kept calling Xinhua News Agency for days to require if any photos on the spot were available. Finally, he gave up and said later in an interview: “I could not understand! The problem is not about a photo, it is about more than one hundred lives.” In fact, Xinhua Photo, the only news organization in China having a national-wide photographer network at that time, did cover the event, but did not release any images until the investigation showed the tragedy was an accident rather than an intentional sabotage.

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