http://asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1699&Itemid=171
Monday, 02 February 2009
China Sets Out to Build a CNN
Written by Mark O'Neill
But there are questions whether Beijing gets it when it comes to
professional journalism
In a 45 billion yuan (US$6.57 billion) burst designed to challenge the
American, European and Al Jazeera networks for television programming primacy
and seeking to change the country's image, China has set out to establish a
24-hour English language channel. But its rigid and unreformed system of news
censorship threatens to torpedo its ambitious plans.
The news operation is to be run by the Xinhua news agency in co-operation
with China Central Television (CCTV), the People's Daily and the Shanghai
Culture Broadcasting and News Group. Its target audience will be the world's 1
billion English-speakers.
In addition, Global Times, an affiliate of the People's Daily, will
launch an English-language national paper in China in May: it is aggressively
hiring Chinese and foreign reporters and editors, with salaries of up to
300,000 yuan a year, plus living quarters.
Driving this is the belief of China's leaders that its voice is not being
heard in the world and that western media dictate the way the rest of the world
sees their country. 2008 should have been the year of triumph, the first time
China hosted the Olympics and the occasion to show the world the achievements
of its last three decades of astonishing growth. But many foreigners remember
2008 in China as a year of Tibetan protests, tainted milk scandals and an
earthquake in which shoddily-built schools collapsed but government offices and
apartments nearby remained standing. China's leaders and many of its people
were bitterly disappointed.
"The strength of your broadcasting determines your influence," Ministry
of Propaganda Liu Yunshan told a meeting last Christmas Day. "Whoever's
broadcasting methods are advanced and broadcasting ability strong will spread
his cultural ideas and value system. Whoever has that strength will influence
the world."
China has already invested heavily in sending its message overseas. The
government-owned and increasingly sophisticated CCTV has global channels in
English, French and Spanish, as well as Chinese, and claims a total audience of
84 million. It plans to open two more, in Arabic and Russian.
Xinhua has bureaus in 100 cities around the world and sells its news, in
seven languages, to 1,450 clients abroad. There are 2 million Chinese-language
websites, of which about 200 specialize in news, with nearly 300 million
Internet users in China. But Hu Jintao and his colleagues decided that China's
message was not getting through. The clearest example was the Tibetan unrest
last year. While the Chinese saw it as the work of hooligans and criminals
among a people they have delivered from backwardness and serfdom, the western
media presented it as the legitimate revolt of an oppressed people, like the
Burmese or the Palestinians. Chinese saw this version of events as ill-informed
and malevolent, written by journalists who had never been to Tibet and who had
written the story even before they did their interviews.
Adding urgency to the task of setting up a Chinese CNN is the knowledge
that 2009 will be a year of many trials, including the 50th anniversary of the
Tibetan rebellion that drove the Dalai Lama into exile and the 20th anniversary
of the democracy protests in 1989. In addition, rising unemployment due to the
world financial crisis will test the government's ability to keep social order.
Beijing is inspired by the example of Al-Jazeera's English language
channel, the first of its kind in the Middle East, which aims 'to give voice to
untold stories, promote debate and challenge established perceptions'.
Al-Jazeera says it is available to 130 million homes in more than 100 countries
via cable and satellite and is one of the three largest global English news
channels, with BBC World and CNN International. It has achieved this in less
than two and a half years, since its launch in November 2006.
Beijing has chosen Xinhua to lead the nascent channel, because it has 78
years of experience, the biggest network of foreign bureaus and the most
journalists with foreign-language ability and experience of working abroad
among the Chinese media.
It has also chosen a good moment to enter the battle. The global
financial crisis has badly hit the media in the western world, sharply reducing
their advertising revenue and income of their owners and making millions of
people around the world skeptical of the liberal, free-market economic model.
China has the highest foreign-exchange reserves in the world.
CCTV has an annual income of 1.13 billion yuan and is moving into a
space-age headquarters in central Beijing, designed by Rem Koolhass. Local
people call it 'the big underpants'. So the new station will have all the
equipment, staff and bureaus it needs.
Its biggest obstacle, however, will be to create a system of news which
is suitable to the 21st century and can win audience from the other networks
and not the model used in China.
While the world around it has altered out of all recognition in the last
two decades, the Chinese information model remains unchanged - all media are
under the control of the Ministry of Propaganda, which can fire staff and close
miscreants at will. The ministry and its branches send a stream of instructions
to the media throughout each day. Party cadres hold key posts.
The war between this apparatus and ambitious journalists seeking to
change the system has been unrelenting since the early 1980s. The best example
is the Southern Metropolitan Daily (SMD), launched in September 1997. It
reported at length on the death of Princess Diana and the World Cup and offered
the first daily consumer sections in China. It carried critical reports on
crime and corruption. By 2000, its circulation had reached 610,000 and its
annual advertising reached 1.3 billion yuan, a record for a Chinese paper.
But in the spring of 2003, in defiance of government orders, it printed
reports on the rapid spread of SARS, the mysterious sudden acute respiratory
syndrome that killed many and imperiled thousands, in Guangdong and other
provinces of China.
On April 23, 2003, it published a story on the death of Sun Zhigang, a
student from Wuhan who had been beaten to death in police custody after being
detained without his identity documents. The story caused outrage at home and
abroad and led to the repeal of the law that allowed police to detain such
people. It was the first time since 1949 that a newspaper revelation had
changed the law.
Enraged, the Guangzhou government went after the SMD editor, Cheng
Yizhong, and two of his senior associates. All three were arrested and charged
with economic crimes. Cheng was released without charge. after five months but
banned from working for the paper again. His two associates were released after
serving reduced sentences, in February 2007 and February 2008 respectively.
Both protest their innocence vehemently.
This was in Guangdong, the province with the largest amount of foreign
investment, the closest to Hong Kong and the pioneer of reforms. It could not
tolerate a real newspaper.
With China descending into increasing protest because of the economic
meltdown, that raises questions among media analysts whether the new station
will be allowed to compete with CNN, the BBC and Al-Jazeera and broadcast news
on the basis of timeliness and accuracy, without the heavy hand of the censor.
Al-Jazeera in particular has raised the standard of television journalism
across much of the third world, with its aggressive reporting on situations the
leaders of Muslim nations in particular would like to let alone, while being
extremely critical of the west. Whether the new channel can report objectively
on Taiwan, Japan, North Korea, Tibet, Xinjiang or other sensitive topics, on
which the censors lay down the most stringent guidelines, remains to be seen.
The answer will determine its success or failure
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