"The first social responsibility and professional ethic of media staff should be understanding their role clearly and be a good mouthpiece." more ›

In a throwback to the bad old days, a loose collection of Chinese nationalists got together in the Shanxi provincial capital of Taiyuan on the afternoon of November 17th, to "angrily denounce" four "traitorous sellout" publications based in Guangzhou (汉奸媒体), by burning several hundred copies of the publications. The news outlets named by the group are the Southern Metropolis Daily, Southern Weekend, Southern Weekly and the Yangcheng Evening News. more ›

Watch what happens when ABC (the Aussie one) foreign correspondent Stephen McDonell decides to confront the handful of thuggish Chinese men who'd been following him around for days. Result: total insanity. more ›

When sent to cover possibly the driest, most pre-scripted nightmare of a political session in the world, what role does the Chinese reporter play? Coverage on the sessions is pre-drafted for mass consumption already, and unless they're looking to capture flashy minority outfits or an assemblage of hard-faced old men, there's not much else to see. So instead, young, ambitious journalists descend on the sessions in a mass of frenzied star-chasing (追星, Zhuīxīng). CPPCC members attract the lion's share of attention, as the larger legislative body pulls people from every industry including entertainment, sports, and music. Above you'll find a taste of the stars of the show this year so far (captions translated from Netease, for the most part.) more ›

It's just ONE DAY until Liu Xiaobo (or at least his picture) receives the peace prize and rhetoric about it has been roughly the same, but maybe turned up a notch. Earlier, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu called everyone opposing their decision to oppose the prize "clowns," noting that "All policies in China are for the interests of the majority of the Chinese people. We will not change ... because of the interference of some clowns who are anti-China." And today, an equally furious op-ed was published in the Global Times. more ›

State run news agency, Xinhua, and American media giant, NBC, have just agreed to start broadcasting TV services together. Xinhua's TV arm, named China Xinhua News Network Corporation (CNC) was launched last year and already has a presence in many parts of the globe, compiling approximately 800 minutes of bilingual English and Chinese news daily. Both sides have released some boring glowy PR rhetoric about how this joint cooperation will be so very wonderful for viewers across the world but what we want to know is whether it will mean more featherbrained directives? more ›

We tend to make fun of China Daily a lot because some of their stories are hilariously obvious and asinine, but maybe we should have been perusing the Global Times for our "unintentional comedy in Chinese media" fix instead. Over the last week, they've managed to write an inadvertent insult to Liu Wei, the armless pianist who won China's Got Talent AND make a (really, really funny) gaffe when interviewing our founding editor. But first - did you know Liu Wei was "a lifeless ordinary"? more ›

As part of it's ongoing global media push, Xinhua has launched its version of the BBC and CNN. It's called CNC World (no idea what the CNC stands for). Despite its ambitions, the channel's launch shows it still needs work. As Tania Branigan of the Guardian stated, " CNC World looked dreary beside its domestic rival CCTV, let alone CNN or al-Jazeera. Anchors were efficient but packages lacklustre; many images appeared to be stock footage. Scripts were plodding and voxpops and interviews sparse, with reporters often reading out quotes instead. Even the credits looked dated." Yikes, growing pains, I guess. more ›

• There's a terrible drought happening in Yunnan right now, with agricultural losses reaching 700 million RMB in Kunming alone. As with every national crisis, this one prompted a visit from Premier Wen to one of the areas hardest hit. There, he delivered the message that no one would go without drinking water. By the way, did you know today was World Water Day? [Go Kunming]
• Chinese media's animosity to Google is rising quickly as the company is poised to pull out - one paper has accused it of working with U.S. intelligence agencies, another hissed at it to stop pushing a political agenda. So this one guy has quipped that maybe Google should have googled "opium wars." Um. I've heard comparisons to the wars from the Chinese, but... [Silicon Valley Watcher]
• Speaking of which, Chinese netizens who feel caught between Google and the government have written an open letter to both, asking them for more information so that everyone would know what's going on. [RConversation]

• As Beijing political season heats up, Chinese blogger Wan Xiaodao has created a how-to list instructing would-be "corrupt officials." Highlights include not writing a diary, living in a nondescript house and not training the next generation to take your place. We're all for dissent, rebellion and free speech, but we always thought part of being corrupt was having money, as well as the thing that come along with it. [china/divide]
• The Great Wall. Terra Cotta Soldiers. Sea of death? Apparently, there a body of water up in Xinjiang that's been causing trouble for centuries - and China has decided to build a railway bridge over it. With a price tag of nearly 4 billion yuan and on track to be completed in just two years, the railway extension seems to be aimed only at cargo - namely potassium salt - which, last we checked, wasn't threatened by death. [China.org.cn]
• Now this is dissent we can get behind! A so-called "naked" blogger - that is, a netizen who has disclosed his real identity to the government and agreed to have his online movements monitored - has taken to his own blog to satirize the "Great Firewall," the Chinese pre-occupation with "walls" in general and the current porn witch hunts. [Global Voices Online]

• DPRK tells Wen it open to nuke talks [China Daily] "Premier of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Kim Yong-il told his visiting Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao Sunday that the country was open to bilateral and multilateral talks on its nuclear programmes, China Central Television (CCTV) reported. "DPRK has never abandoned the goal (of denuclearising the Korean peninsula). We are willing to seek to realize this goal through bilateral and multilateral dialogue," Kim was quoted as saying by the CCTV."
• China Hopes to Create Its Own Media Empires [NYTimes] ""China plans to spend billions of dollars in the next few years to develop media and entertainment companies that it hopes can compete with global giants like the News Corporation and Time Warner, and will in the process loosen some of its tight control of these industries. An ambitious plan, set forth in guidelines last week by China’s State Council, envisions the creation of entertainment, news and culture companies with a market orientation and with less government backing. China, in short, would like to consolidate its industry into companies resembling Bloomberg, Time Warner and Viacom, analysts say."
• Obama's Meeting With the Dalai Lama Is Delayed [Washington Post] "In an attempt to gain favor with China, the United States pressured Tibetan representatives to postpone a meeting between the Dalai Lama and President Obama until after Obama's summit with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, scheduled for next month, according to diplomats, government officials and other sources familiar with the talks."

Thought China's international media expansions are over? Think again - it seems that they're at it again. The South China Morning Post reported today that the CCP will be launching an English-language version of its venerable magazine Seeking Truth ("Qiushi", 求是). more ›

This famous line was said by a very famous professor, Yi Zhongtian （易中天）, on CCTV. Yi Zhongtian, a professor at Xiamen University, is famous for his lecture series on CCTV-10 about the Han Dynasty and one of China's classic masterpieces, Romance of the Three Kingdoms （三国演义). more ›

Satirical U.S. joke paper The Onion is, for a reason not quite clear yet, doing a China special. Maybe they caught on to all the recent coverage of Chinese companies buying up Western media and decided that it'd be a perfect time to do their own spoof - sans any sensitive anniversaries or other events that would normally set off a decidedly humorless notice from the office of Qin Gang. more ›

It's possible that you haven't heard about China's recent huge, ambitious, expensive, and sometimes bizarre push to expand its media influence abroad--then again, maybe not. Either way, Beijing is at it again, as Media reports that China is preparing to launch an international advertising campaign designed to repair the image of Chinese-made goods abroad: more ›

A Wenzhou businessman has bought out Yorkshire-based not-for-profit satellite television channel Propeller and will soon begin using the channel to broadcast programs promoting China and Chinese culture in Europe, according to China Daily. more ›

Remember the government's proposed 45 billion yuan effort to ensure that the rest of the world sees a media more aligned with what the central politico wants it to see? It's started! more ›