Beijing officials have disappeared seven media members for reporting on COVID-19, but allow Jane Qiu access to government researchers for celebrity interview on hair?

Since the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, people around the globe have learned two things: governments are poorly prepared to handle a pandemic, and China is an autocratic state, pushing propaganda to protect the interests of its leaders. Last week, Reporters Without Borders urged the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to release seven members of the media who were censored and remain incarcerated for reporting on the pandemic.

“Informing the public on this unprecedented health crisis is not a crime!” said an official with Reporters Without Borders (RSF). “These journalists should never have been arrested.”

In the Washington Post, columnist Sonny Bunch noted that the CCP’s bullying of the movie industry (China strangled Martin Scorsese’s 1997 film on the Dalai Lama) parallels a playbook followed by a prior authoritarian regime: Nazi Germany. Meanwhile, the New York Times reported yesterday that the CCP heavily edits scenes that depict homosexuality from the sitcom “Friends” and has disappeared cameos on the show by Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and BTS—three entertainers who have offended the country’s leaders.