http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703871904575216020649004914.html
APRIL 30, 2010, 8:55 P.M. ET China's Xinhua to Launch English-Language Station By JASON DEAN BEIJING-China's state news agency announced the launch of a global English-language television channel, part of a broader international push by the country's government media aimed at countering the dominance of Western news outlets and conveying a Chinese perspective on events. Xinhua news agency said trial broadcasts of the new 24-hour TV service, called China Network Corp., or CNC, will start Saturday, and the station will be fully operational July 1. CNC will be available by satellite, cable systems, the Internet and cellphones, Xinhua said, and will carry a range of programming on news, business and lifestyle issues. "CNC will offer an alternative source of information for a global audience and aims to promote peace and development by interpreting the world in a global perspective," Xinhua quoted its president, Li Congjun, as saying at a launch ceremony Friday. China's leadership has grown increasingly frustrated in recent years by its inability to gain influence over international views to match its rising economic and geopolitical clout. The government often bristles at foreign media coverage of China, especially sensitive events like ethnic riots in Tibet in 2008. By pouring funds into the overseas expansion of outlets like Xinhua it hopes to give China its own versions of CNN or the BBC. The effort is part of a larger campaign to enhance China's "soft power" through programs like China-funded "Confucius Institutes" abroad that teach Chinese language and culture. The media push is complicated, however, by the traditional role of major state outlets like Xinhua and China Central Television as propaganda arms. "These are not the kind of organizations that have a reputation for being very flexible and creative," says David Bandurski, a researcher at the China Media Project at the University of Hong Kong. China does have a growing group of smaller, more independent media outlets that have won plaudits from media experts in China and abroad for their coverage, but those groups aren't part of the government's effort. Mr. Bandurski says there is concern within Chinese media circles that the emphasis on major state media could backfire by reinforcing negative perceptions of China abroad. "The danger is that they open up these channels but they're sending ideological garbage across them," he says. It's unclear how sizable a market there is for the new Xinhua station. But such uncertainty isn't the sort of impediment that would exist for a primarily commercial media venture. Beijing's goal with this and similar media efforts is to put China's message out to international audiences in a package that can eventually find enough of an audience to sway public opinion. Xinhua, founded in the 1930s when the Communist Party was still a revolutionary organization, is a sprawling agency, with more than 13,000 employees and bureaus in more than 100 countries. Like other state media outlets, it has been trying to retool its operations along more commercial lines in recent years, and has been making a push to compete with Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg LP in providing financial information in China. The changes in China's media are increasingly pitting government news outlets against each other after decades of operating in clearly defined domains. Xinhua's output traditionally was limited to print and photographs, but it is now battling with CCTV, the giant state broadcaster. CCTV is undertaking its own international push, and bolstering its offerings at home with a new online video site that competes with online video by Xinhua. This past week, CCTV announced a rebranding of its decade-old English-language station, formerly called CCTV-9, as CCTV News. The network is billing CCTV News, which is also getting some retooled programming, as "China's contribution to greater diversity and wider perspectives in the global information flow." CCTV says the channel is accessible via satellite by some 85 million viewers in more than 100 countries. The network also has international channels that broadcast in French, Spanish, Russian and Arabic. The international push has also spawned a newspaper battle between China Daily, the English-language broadsheet founded in 1981, and an English edition started a year ago by Global Times, a tabloid published by the People's Daily, the Communist Party's official mouthpiece. To some degree, their competition for foreign readers appears to have fueled more aggressive journalistic tactics. Global Times and China Daily have featured stories about sensitive issues like antigovernment protests and illegal detentions by police-subjects seldom raised by major state media. Xinhua started a Chinese-language international channel on Jan. 1. The new English station will be available via Asia-Pacific Satellite-6, Xinhua said, without specifying how many countries it might reach. Xinhua representatives didn't immediately respond to requests for comment on how much the new initiative will cost. At a ceremony for the Jan. 1 launch, Mr. Li, the Xinhua president, said the agency's goal is to "provide international news with a Chinese perspective and Chinese news with a global perspective for an overseas audience. We will operate based on market rules, but will prevent commercial interests from eroding media responsibility, and will oppose turning news into entertainment." Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, has a venture with Xinhua to deliver Journal-branded news in Chinese to Chinese consumers through China Mobile Ltd. wireless networks. Write to Jason Dean at [email protected]
