Imagine if the American government had censored the Minneapolis bridge collapse in the summer of 2007? Or the destruction of the Twin Towers on 9/11? Somewhere in between the importance of those two events lies the fire which destroyed the brand new Chinese Central TV building, which includes the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. The CCTV building was one of China’s much-touted construction projects that went along with their massive expenditures in the lead up to the Beijing Olympics. The building, in central Beijing and one of the largest landmarks in the capital, was destroyed, yet that destruction was censored by government propaganda officials and not reported in the press.

There were no pictures on the front page of The Beijing News. The home page of Xinhua, the official news agency, featured a photo from another tragedy: a stampede in South Korea that left four people dead. Throughout the morning, CCTV’s brief bulletins about the blaze omitted footage of the burning tower.

Even before the flames had been extinguished early Tuesday, pcitures of the burning hotel had been removed from the country’s main Internet portals. By afternoon, the story had been largely buried.

A directive sent out by propaganda officials made it clear that the authorities were eager to reduce public attention to the blaze, a colossal embarrassment that many people believe augurs poorly for the new year. “No photos, no video clips, no in-depth reports,” read the memo, which instructed all media outlets to use only Xinhua’s dispatches. “The news should be put on news areas only and the comments posting areas should be closed.”

It’s hard to comprehend this whitewashing in the Chinese “press” but there it is. Because this fire is an incredible embarrassment to the Chinese government, it is being hidden from the public.

I can’t imagine what it must be like to have a government so petrified of its people.