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A live question-and-answer television show featuring dialogue between local officials and residents has thrust the city of Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei Province, into the national spotlight.
From June 26 to July 4, vice mayors and various district and bureau heads sat onstage to face public scrutiny on a series of primetime Wuhan Television Station programs centered around the theme of “holding officials accountable for poor duty performance.”
The segments aimed at solving 10 of the city’s most pressing problems—those the government had already promised to solve. These issues ranged from city development and low-income housing to traffic and the environment. This no-holds-barred approach to governance and TV ratings has gained favor with audiences.
Reporters secretly collected footage filmed by residents concerned with civic dysfunction. “Officials had no idea in advance of what was going to come up,” said producer He Zhiqiang.
Fast response
On the June 28 program, an elderly resident surnamed Lu revealed heaps of waste from construction sites nearby his home. “The waste is right outside the community causing dust to accumulate,” said Lu, who had no idea which government department he should turn to for help or how long it would take to clean up.
An official of the Wuhan Municipal Urban Management Bureau promised on live TV to clean up the site in one week. Indeed, Lu saw a group of workers show up the next day and the mess was gone within seven days.
“They acted so quickly. It was beyond my expectations,” said Lu, who reappeared for the July 3 show.
Footage airing during the June 26 segment shows a tableware-washing facility provided restaurants with dirty products. Yang Zefa, head of the Wuhan Municipal Food and Drug Administration who ap- peared in the show, called an emergency meeting to deal with the problem and another on July 8 to decide appropriate punishments.
Producers employed other tricks besides candid camerawork. In the show held on July 2, Gao Danyan, head of the Wuhan Administration for Industry and Commerce, received an empty letter from the presenter, as previously broadcast footage shows officials from his bureau asking envelopes filled with money or bribes from business owners.
“Some officials said that before stepping on to the stage they were terrified about going on the show and didn’t want to come,”said Huang Hongyun, a researcher with the Wuhan Academy of Social Sciences and a commentator for the live show.
“For me, this show is like an exam,” said Liu Ziqing, head of Dongxihu District, who admitted he was very nervous before his appearance. “Some officials never stopped sweating during the live show.”
“They really performed like a pupil facing a strict teacher. That is really good progress. It makes the officials understand their responsibilities,” Huang said, adding that the program fulfilled the changes desired by the public, as its voice was heard.
“The questions should make the officials sweat while answering, and the sharp and pungent style will force them to change the way they go about their work,” said Ruan Chengfa, Secretary of the Wuhan Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China.
Ruan also revealed that it is the political task for the officials to attend the show. “The local government has very harsh rules regarding this,” Ruan said. “Officials cannot ask for leave or go on business trips during the broadcast days.”
Apart from asking officials face to face, residents can also participate through phone calls and online means. “The comments online are even sharper,” Ruan said.
Compared to netizens, the live audience seems to be friendlier. This has caused suspicion.
According to He, the producer, all the spectators were selected from those who applied for the TV show through telephone calls or e-mails.
“We do not invite pro-government spectators, and their attitudes toward government performance are based on their own views. We did not have limits on the questions they could ask, but our director had to know what kind of questions might be asked in advance,” He said.
Follow-ups and future
Wuhan’s official Q&A show has drawn attention elsewhere. Local and municipal governments in Hunan, Hubei, Henan and Hainan provinces followed suit and produced their own TV shows putting officials on the spot.
Yuan Hua, Deputy Party Secretary of Chuzhou City in east China’s Anhui Province, experienced his trial by fire concerning his role as a director of a 100-billion-yuan ($15.87 billion) industrial development project. Yuan faced sharp questions concerning how the government intended to relocate the 1,400 households displaced by the project, what it would do to prevent corruption, and whether the project would benefit the people.
“This requires us to better carry out our work, to have a thorough understanding of problems, and to think maturely about solutions to those problems,” Yuan said. “Facing the public directly prohibits even a scrap of negligence.”
Yuan revealed a timetable for the project and how it was being supervised during the show.
An Guoling, an official with the local government of Chuzhou, explained that the city holds two kinds of TV shows for officials—heads of local government institutions would report their work and receive public evaluation on TV at the end of every year, and interviews on the progress of major projects and government work in the city.
“As for the questions that cannot be answered during the show, officials have to give written replies within a specified time range and report the solutions to the municipal government,” An said.
Hu Zhaozhou, former Vice Chairman of the Wuhan Municipal Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the local advisory body, effusively praised such live shows on his micro-blog.
“The live inquiry of officials represents forms of democracy, supervision and communication. It will improve government work,”Hu said. “The public raises questions for the government, and under their supervision and surveillance, some difficult problems that require coordination between departments are solved.”
Zhang Xin, a professor at the Beijingbased Renmin University of China, was more subdued regarding the shows’ prospects.“Government work has a legal process, and the government should follow that process. Of course, any new methods of doing this should be considered,” he told Beijing-published Global Times newspaper.
“We have laws and regulations for of- ficials to follow as they go about their work. If the TV shows are just hype, it’s not a real long-term solution,” Zhang added. However, some also warn that besides TV shows, governments should focus on establishing mechanisms to enhance public supervision, such as to report government work to the public on a regular basis, and handle problems that come to light during the shows strictly according to the law. During the live show in Wuhan, some officials expressed their resolve to immediately deal with the problems that had been exposed. This raised the question as to why they were being dealt with after the issue was brought to public attention, instead of during the course of their daily duties.
Yin Chenfang, a presenter of the live show in Wuhan, said the audiences are getting more mature in the past years. “At the very beginning, they mostly focused on which official sweat or got nervous at the show, while now they care more about how the problems get solved,” Yin said. “Solving problems is the point after all.”
Che Yangao, Secretary of the Wuhan Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China, said after the July 5 show that government workers should believe in “immediate action”in the course of their daily work. “We plan to hold such live shows once a week in Wuhan in the near future,” Che said.
The next five-part Q&A series is scheduled for December.
From June 26 to July 4, vice mayors and various district and bureau heads sat onstage to face public scrutiny on a series of primetime Wuhan Television Station programs centered around the theme of “holding officials accountable for poor duty performance.”
The segments aimed at solving 10 of the city’s most pressing problems—those the government had already promised to solve. These issues ranged from city development and low-income housing to traffic and the environment. This no-holds-barred approach to governance and TV ratings has gained favor with audiences.
Reporters secretly collected footage filmed by residents concerned with civic dysfunction. “Officials had no idea in advance of what was going to come up,” said producer He Zhiqiang.
Fast response
On the June 28 program, an elderly resident surnamed Lu revealed heaps of waste from construction sites nearby his home. “The waste is right outside the community causing dust to accumulate,” said Lu, who had no idea which government department he should turn to for help or how long it would take to clean up.
An official of the Wuhan Municipal Urban Management Bureau promised on live TV to clean up the site in one week. Indeed, Lu saw a group of workers show up the next day and the mess was gone within seven days.
“They acted so quickly. It was beyond my expectations,” said Lu, who reappeared for the July 3 show.
Footage airing during the June 26 segment shows a tableware-washing facility provided restaurants with dirty products. Yang Zefa, head of the Wuhan Municipal Food and Drug Administration who ap- peared in the show, called an emergency meeting to deal with the problem and another on July 8 to decide appropriate punishments.
Producers employed other tricks besides candid camerawork. In the show held on July 2, Gao Danyan, head of the Wuhan Administration for Industry and Commerce, received an empty letter from the presenter, as previously broadcast footage shows officials from his bureau asking envelopes filled with money or bribes from business owners.
“Some officials said that before stepping on to the stage they were terrified about going on the show and didn’t want to come,”said Huang Hongyun, a researcher with the Wuhan Academy of Social Sciences and a commentator for the live show.
“For me, this show is like an exam,” said Liu Ziqing, head of Dongxihu District, who admitted he was very nervous before his appearance. “Some officials never stopped sweating during the live show.”
“They really performed like a pupil facing a strict teacher. That is really good progress. It makes the officials understand their responsibilities,” Huang said, adding that the program fulfilled the changes desired by the public, as its voice was heard.
“The questions should make the officials sweat while answering, and the sharp and pungent style will force them to change the way they go about their work,” said Ruan Chengfa, Secretary of the Wuhan Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China.
Ruan also revealed that it is the political task for the officials to attend the show. “The local government has very harsh rules regarding this,” Ruan said. “Officials cannot ask for leave or go on business trips during the broadcast days.”
Apart from asking officials face to face, residents can also participate through phone calls and online means. “The comments online are even sharper,” Ruan said.
Compared to netizens, the live audience seems to be friendlier. This has caused suspicion.
According to He, the producer, all the spectators were selected from those who applied for the TV show through telephone calls or e-mails.
“We do not invite pro-government spectators, and their attitudes toward government performance are based on their own views. We did not have limits on the questions they could ask, but our director had to know what kind of questions might be asked in advance,” He said.
Follow-ups and future
Wuhan’s official Q&A show has drawn attention elsewhere. Local and municipal governments in Hunan, Hubei, Henan and Hainan provinces followed suit and produced their own TV shows putting officials on the spot.
Yuan Hua, Deputy Party Secretary of Chuzhou City in east China’s Anhui Province, experienced his trial by fire concerning his role as a director of a 100-billion-yuan ($15.87 billion) industrial development project. Yuan faced sharp questions concerning how the government intended to relocate the 1,400 households displaced by the project, what it would do to prevent corruption, and whether the project would benefit the people.
“This requires us to better carry out our work, to have a thorough understanding of problems, and to think maturely about solutions to those problems,” Yuan said. “Facing the public directly prohibits even a scrap of negligence.”
Yuan revealed a timetable for the project and how it was being supervised during the show.
An Guoling, an official with the local government of Chuzhou, explained that the city holds two kinds of TV shows for officials—heads of local government institutions would report their work and receive public evaluation on TV at the end of every year, and interviews on the progress of major projects and government work in the city.
“As for the questions that cannot be answered during the show, officials have to give written replies within a specified time range and report the solutions to the municipal government,” An said.
Hu Zhaozhou, former Vice Chairman of the Wuhan Municipal Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the local advisory body, effusively praised such live shows on his micro-blog.
“The live inquiry of officials represents forms of democracy, supervision and communication. It will improve government work,”Hu said. “The public raises questions for the government, and under their supervision and surveillance, some difficult problems that require coordination between departments are solved.”
Zhang Xin, a professor at the Beijingbased Renmin University of China, was more subdued regarding the shows’ prospects.“Government work has a legal process, and the government should follow that process. Of course, any new methods of doing this should be considered,” he told Beijing-published Global Times newspaper.
“We have laws and regulations for of- ficials to follow as they go about their work. If the TV shows are just hype, it’s not a real long-term solution,” Zhang added. However, some also warn that besides TV shows, governments should focus on establishing mechanisms to enhance public supervision, such as to report government work to the public on a regular basis, and handle problems that come to light during the shows strictly according to the law. During the live show in Wuhan, some officials expressed their resolve to immediately deal with the problems that had been exposed. This raised the question as to why they were being dealt with after the issue was brought to public attention, instead of during the course of their daily duties.
Yin Chenfang, a presenter of the live show in Wuhan, said the audiences are getting more mature in the past years. “At the very beginning, they mostly focused on which official sweat or got nervous at the show, while now they care more about how the problems get solved,” Yin said. “Solving problems is the point after all.”
Che Yangao, Secretary of the Wuhan Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China, said after the July 5 show that government workers should believe in “immediate action”in the course of their daily work. “We plan to hold such live shows once a week in Wuhan in the near future,” Che said.
The next five-part Q&A series is scheduled for December.