Trying to blackout an explosion

The Washington Post describes the efforts of local authorities to keep an explosion at Tian Shifu in Liaoning province under wraps. It is an excellent case study in how an explosion, costing at least 25 lives and problably much more, is kept out of the publicity.

In Beijing, officials in the central government of President Hu Jintao have suggested repeatedly that a more open attitude is necessary in the age of cellphones and the Internet. Wang Guoqing, vice minister of the government's national Information Office, told China Central Television last month that local attempts to block coverage of negative news are "naive" given the new technology.
Whether Wang was sincere or not in his call for more openness, the message has not gotten through in China's provincial propaganda offices. At those levels, senior propaganda officials often are on close terms with local newspaper and television editors; they attend the same party meetings and follow similar career paths. Coverage of Tian Shifu's explosion was a case in point.

The struggle for openness is an ongoing one. The story in the end made it into the Washington Post, but might not got a huge readership in Benxi county.