Worth noting that these are actual people about to have lives disrupted, and that not all state media journalists are propagandists. Many are earnest recent grads with limited options for staying in the US AND being able to do some semblance of journalism.
Once, a reporter from one of these 4 outlets in the US (who'd recently graduated from a US J-school) asked me to comment on a story about media in China. I was only willing to give a quote about the restrictions/harassment foreign journalists in China face...
I said I knew she wouldn’t be able to use that quote, but if I said anything about problems with foreign media coverage itself, that’s all that would be printed. She told me she appreciated that and actually – naively – tried to put my critical quote in (unsuccessfully of course)
It’ll inevitably be these people who are the first sent home under this new US policy – the younger, more earnest and more vulnerable Chinese reporters early in their careers, while the older established ideologues in charge stay put.
There are lots of Chinese students studying in US J-schools now who also, ya know, establish lives in the US over the years they're here studying. And it's very hard to get visas to stay and work in US media...assuming they even make it over the huge barriers to getting hired.
There are less cruel ways this could’ve been done, like stopping NEW visas to these outlets and making them shrink through attrition, rather than abruptly upending the lives of 60 random employees the outlets themselves choose (ie. ppl not most crucial to their mission anyways)
If you're worried about these outlets harboring reporters who are actually nefarious state agents, that's a legit concern. But who do you think they're going to let go because of this new policy? Those agents, or the 22-year-old who's writing benign culture stories?
Another side-effect I worry this policy could potentially have: If it were to actually complicate any of the Chinese government's objectives that depend on these outlets (a big "if"), it might be tempting to co-opt other, independent Chinese media for those purposes.
...and obviously, this gives PRC government cover to expel more American journalists from China. It won't likely see it as tit-for-tat, it'll see it as an escalation. Less than a dozen US journalists de facto expelled from China in last decade vs 60 PRC journalists in one swoop.
