What a journalist’s jailing for heroic Covid coverage exposes about China

My business — documenting attacks on journalists in Asia and advocating on their behalf — requires a thick skin. I can’t let every case get to me, or I couldn’t function. But sometimes a case pierces through the armor. That happened Monday morning when I awoke to the news that a Chinese court had sentenced journalist Zhang Zhan, 37, to four years in jail for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” This follows the government indictment, which accused her of “publishing large amounts of fake information.”