Amid the Media Crush, China Crushes Back BEIJING - Journalists usually try to stay out of the news. Sometimes they become it. That's what happened to Melissa Chan, the China correspondent for Al Jazeera English, the Qatar-based TV network, who has been effectively expelled from China after officials in Beijing refused to renew her journalist visa in what appears to be the first expulsion of a non-Chinese reporter in 14 years. Ms. Chan left China on Monday night for the United States, Stephen McDonell, president of the Beijing-based Foreign Correspondent's Club of China, said in a telephone interview. Ms. Chan was known for hard-hitting reporting on issues like illegal jails and the annual anniversary of the June 4, 1989 massacre of democracy protestors. She did some "pretty feisty reports," said Mr. McDonell. "They were pretty unhappy with the general reporting of Al Jazeera English," he said, adding that, ironically, the specific report that is believed to have prompted Ms. Chan's expulsion wasn't hers. That report, on China's alleged use of prison labor, "Slavery: A 21st Century Evil," can be viewed here. Just how bad is press freedom in China? There are different ways of looking at it. According to Reporters Without Borders, China ranks a spectacularly bad 174th out of 179 countries, when it comes to freedom of the press. But China is undergoing tremendous social change and, as with all change, it helps to view it comparatively. Old China hands - long-term foreign residents and reporters - cited by Mr. McDonell believe that overall, press freedom in China is growing, for foreign journalists and for their Chinese counterparts, though there are cyclical rollbacks based on the overall political situation and sensitivities. "As one Chinese journalist said after Mr. Bo's fall, only partly in jest, "I don't report on Chongqing, I don't eat Chongqing food, I don't date Chongqing girls." And the world is full of ironies: Al Jazeera is headquartered in Qatar, a country that doesn't do too well either in terms of press freedoms, ranking 114th out of 179 countries in Reporters Without Borders" latest Press Freedom Index. The United States ranks 47th. With China about to undergo a once-in-a-decade, thoroughgoing leadership change beginning in October, the situation is tense. My colleague at the New York Times, Michael Wines, reports that "relations between the ruling Communist Party and the overseas journalists who cover it" are "fraying," partly under the pressure of two major news events this year - the destabilizing fall from power of the Communist Party scion and former party chief of Chongqing, Bo Xilai, and the embarrassing flight to the United States embassy of the blind, self-taught lawyer, Chen Guangcheng. Chinese journalists have been almost entirely muzzled on both events but foreign reporters have used their larger space for maneuver to do what they do everywhere: chase a story. That led to detentions, warnings and confiscation of reporting credentials, as journalists tried to find out what was really going on with Mr. Chen, whose high-profile flight was followed by an equally high-profile flip-flop when he first said he wanted to stay in China then, apparently afraid the Chinese government would target him, said he wanted to go to the United States. In the face of the two biggest stories of the year in their own country, Chinese reporters have been largely impotent - as one Chinese journalist, requesting anonymity, said to an overseas journalist about Mr. Bo's fall, only partly in jest, "I don't report on Chongqing, I don't eat Chongqing food, I don't date Chongqing girls." Instead, Chinese newspapers have run official editorials chastising the American government for trying to help Mr. Chen and demanding an apology. For many journalists, that was downright humiliating. In a rare, public sign of shame, the Beijing News on May 5th posted to its account on weibo, China's twitter-like service, a black-and-white photograph of a downcast clown. The clown's face paint was smeared, he was smoking a cigarette, and the caption read: "In the still of the deep night, removing that mask of insincerity, we say to our true selves, "I am sorry." Goodnight. A pdf of that now-deleted link can be found here. If the message of the posting was lost on anyone, the comments below - saved before the post was censored - make clear that Chinese netizens, among the most sophisticated in the world because they shadow box daily with the country's vast censorship apparatus, understand all too well what the newspaper was saying. No choice. A tragedy," wrote a netizen called serry2012. You have no choice, I also have no choice. Apart from having no choice, what can we do? What should we do?" wrote Yirisanwanbaqianmiao. Wrote Geben caogen, in a post that made clear how some people feel the state's authoritarian politics and harsh censorship are keeping China down: "We understand you, Beijing News and all journalists in the media: I believe that if only you had an appropriate environment, you'd definitely be cooler than western media!" Salah Negm, director of news at Al Jazeera English, called on China to allow Al Jazeera reporters the same freedoms in China that Chinese reporters enjoy around the world. China is currently engaged in a major push to set up media overseas, part of a reported $9 billion a year "soft power" thrust. We've been doing a first class job at covering all stories in China. Our editorial DNA includes covering all stories from all sides. We constantly cover the voice of the voiceless and sometimes that calls for tough news coverage from anywhere in the world," Mr. Negm said, in a statement. Just as China news services cover the world freely we would expect that same freedom in China for any Al Jazeera journalist. Yet, Ms. Chan's expulsion was just "the most extreme example of a recent pattern of using journalist visas in an attempt to censor and intimidate foreign correspondents in China," Mr. McDonell's organization said in a statement issued on Tuesday, listing dozens of visa applications that were delayed or rejected and reporting trips cancelled over the last two years, in a pattern of control that remains largely hidden from the world. "One of the reasons the general public don't hear about it is that we don't want to make ourselves the center of the story," said Mr. McDonell. And then too, overall, things are perhaps improving, he said, "Old Hands that have been here for a long time say it comes in waves and overall it's a lot better."