From WNYNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media.

I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone.

China's first manned space flight had one-sixth of the world's population celebrating this week,

but the space program created a dilemma that seems to sum up China's struggle with modernity and media.

The Chinese government's penchant for secrecy is no secret,

and a project involving advanced rocket technology in the

People's Liberation Army would seem especially sensitive. At the same time, the government is

eager to tout the country's technological advances, both to foreigners who might want to pay to launch

satellites and to a Chinese public gripped by an enthusiasm for space that might seem quaint to Russians or Americans.

This tension between the desire for secrecy and national pride was, of course, reflected in the Chinese media.

At the 11th hour, the government decided not to broadcast the liftoff live,

but half an hour after the launch, the video was all over state media. And now that

the astronaut has landed safely, the country is awash in exultant coverage. Orville's

Shell is the dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley

and has written extensively on Asia. Orville, welcome back to the show.

How are you? Good. So you'd think this would be something to celebrate, wouldn't you?

Why did the Chinese government want to keep a lid on the news?

Well, I think it's important to remember that in 1995, they did have a live feed of a rocket that went

up and blew up right on the air. So I think even though they were

incredibly excited about this and initially could hardly resist the idea of people all across

the country and all around the world watching it live, prudence dictated that they do a delayed

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