ABSTRACT
As the state has reduced its absolute control over media content, Chinese journalists have been thinking about their own functions, about what it means to be a ‘professional’. Although some freedom of thought and action is associated with the concept of professionalism, so too are service to the state and the transmission of orthodoxy. The admission of ‘impartiality’ as a fundamental ethic of the professional journalist is limited by the context, in a society where it is partiality that is expected, and prized.
