[R-G] China plans media empire to boost image

Fri Feb 20 10:19:23 MST 2009

China plans media empire to boost image
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-02-18-chinamedia_N.htm

By Calum MacLeod, USA TODAY
BEIJING — China, known for its tight control of people and the news,  
wants to soften its image around the world and is ready to spend big  
bucks on a media empire to do that.

Plans include creating what amounts to a Chinese CNN, a 24-hour  
English-language news network possibly based in Singapore or elsewhere  
outside China, within 12 months, say media advisers to the government.

People's Daily, the voice of China's ruling Communist Party, is  
preparing to launch an English-language newspaper in the next few  
months, says Zhang Nanyi, an editor at the new paper. The state  
broadcaster is hiring staff for channels in Arabic and Russian, the TV  
network's party chief, Zhang Haige, told People's Daily.

China's government "feels it has major problems communicating with the  
West," says Yu Guoming, the journalism school dean at Renmin  
University in Beijing, who has advised Chinese officials on the media  
push and says plans are moving ahead. "They need new channels of  
communication, with more balance and diverse views than in existing  
Chinese media. They are aware that the old methods of propaganda won't  
work."

China's leaders "are still deciding when to start the new channel, but  
they will definitely do it soon," says Steven Dong, director of the  
Global Journalism Institute at Beijing's Tsinghua University. The  
channel will build on the growing number of bureaus of the state-run  
Xinhua News Agency, which has been lobbying for five years to expand  
into broadcasting, says Dong, who advises the government on media  
strategy.

The government "has thought about this for a long time, and became  
more confident after the Olympics" in August, he says. The successful  
staging of the Games "persuaded the government to provide more money"  
to support these expansion plans.

Questions remain about whether China can ease its rigid control to  
allow the free flow of information about Asian news around the world.  
For example, last week's major fire at an unfinished 44-story luxury  
hotel adjoining China Central Television's new headquarters got scant  
mention in China's newspapers — or on CCTV, even though the  
broadcaster's fireworks display sparked the inferno.

"Who made this stupid decision not to show coverage?" asks journalism  
professor Li Xiguang of Beijing's Tsinghua University. "In the time of  
the Internet, this really damages CCTV. The backfire is bigger than  
the fire."

Li welcomes the move toward better news coverage but notes that China  
has two major hurdles — a "great shortage of good journalists" and the  
urge to control.

China also plans an aggressive marketing campaign of its TV programs  
next month in Cannes, France, says Rowan Simons, director of a media  
consultant group in Beijing. Among the programs is The Story of Bruce  
Lee, China's top-rated drama in 2008.

Simons doubts that the new TV channel or newspaper "will be different  
from current media," because they are "the mouthpiece of the party."

For Shanghai lawyer Wu Dong, CCTV equals "brainwashing." Wu was among  
22 Chinese academics and lawyers who signed an open letter last month  
calling on viewers to boycott the network, which had cut away from  
live coverage of President Obama's inaugural speech after he mentioned  
communism.

Wu says he is angry at CCTV's lack of coverage of last year's tainted  
milk scandal. "If the government wants to influence the international  
audience through these new media, we cannot use the old methods," Wu  
says.

"The government must list truth as the No. 1 principle of news," he  
says. "We must follow the international, universal rules, like CNN or  
the BBC."