Is China's Xinhua the Future of Journalism? - Newsweek

[Renegade]

All the Propaganda That’s Fit to Print
Why Xinhua, China’s state news agency, could be the future of journalism.



It had all the trappings of a globally significant confab: big-deal appearances (by Google, BBC), a weighty theme (“the digital age”), and speechifying by international pooh-bahs. Rupert Murdoch, the CEO of News Corp., even delivered a peppery keynote, vowing war on “content kleptomaniacs.” But despite its name, the World Media Summit was itself a media bust, especially in the English-speaking press, which barely covered the three-day event held last fall in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People. The problem? The conference was a propagandafest, a “media Olympics” hosted by the Xinhua News Agency, an official organ of the Chinese Communist Party. If China has its way, however, ignoring Xinhua won’t be an option for long.

For decades Xinhua has been an unavoidable presence in China. It has a monopoly on official news and the regulatory power to complicate life for other media outfits. But as China has grown in wealth and international stature, Beijing has tired of feeling overlooked or maligned by the Western press. So Xinhua’s role has been redefined, as a means for China to wield soft power abroad. In the last year alone, the 80-year-old outlet launched a 24-hour English-language news station, colonized a skyscraper in New York’s Times Square, and announced plans to expand its news-gathering operation from 120 to 200 overseas bureaus and as many as 6,000 journalists abroad. Not to be outdone by its Western peers, Xinhua has also released an iPhone app for “Xinhua news, cartoons, financial information and entertainment programs around the clock.”

With a price tag estimated in the billions of dollars, the new Xinhua is an expensive megaphone. But it’s key “to breaking the monopoly and verbal hegemony” of the West, according to remarks released last year by Xinhua’s president, Li Congjun, who often sounds like he’s channeling Noam Chomsky. Xinhua declined to make officials available for this story, citing “holiday season.” But clearly the effort has to do with the new rules of propaganda, too. Where the game was once about suppressing news, it’s now about overwhelming it, flooding the market with your own information. Airbrushing photos is for amateurs.

The challenge is finding an audience for “news” that is best known for its blind spots. The typical Xinhua sentence is thick on the tongue (“out of which 20 percent were the HIV-infected persons”) and often inaccurate by design. In Xinhua’s world, the Tiananmen Square massacre never happened, Falun Gong is an evil cult, and the Dalai Lama is the Guy Fawkes of Tibet. Xinhua also gathers sensitive news—such as the full heads-rolling horror of the Uighur riots last summer—and releases it to Chinese officials alone. It’s as if The New York Times were to stamp its scoops “internal reference reports” and file them to President Obama.

Nevertheless, Xinhua may be the future of news for one big reason: cost. Most news organizations are in retreat, shuttering bureaus and laying off journalists. But the former “Red China News Agency” doesn’t need to worry about the inconvenience of turning a profit. As a result, it might do for news what China’s state-run factories have done for tawdry baubles and cheap clothes: take something that has become a commodity and foist it onto the world far more cheaply than anyone else can. “It gives them an inherent competitive advantage” says Tuna Amobi, a media analyst for Standard & Poor’s, who thinks Xinhua’s cheap news “might fly.” A subscription to all Xinhua stories costs in the low five figures, compared with at least six figures for comparable access to the Associated Press, Reuters, or AFP. For customers who still can’t afford the fees, a Xinhua aid program offers everything—content, equipment, and technical support—for free.

It’s an alluring deal in the Middle East, Africa, and the developing world, where newsprint sales are up and there’s hunger for non-Western perspectives. Xinhua operates in areas uncovered by the ratings agencies, so its hard to gauge audience size. But in recent months, Xinhua has signed content deals with state-run outlets in Cuba, Mongolia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Turkey, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe, making it a leading source of news for Africa and much of Asia, with more boots on the ground in those continents than any other organization. “They are literally everywhere,” says Orville Schell, director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York.

It helps, of course, that Xinhua’s spin diminishes when the news doesn’t involve China. “I read them quite a lot,” says Daniel Bettini, foreign editor for Yedioth Ahronoth, one of Israel’s largest newspapers. Editors in Pakistan and Turkey also praise Xinhua, noting that the language is simple and the quality has improved. “In the second Gulf war they were very good,” says Kamil Erdogdu, China correspondent for Turkey’s state news agency. “They got many things first; I used them many times.” AFP and the European Pressphoto Agency recently agreed to sell Xinhua images abroad. “I’m not convinced [censorship] makes a whole lot of difference” for video and pictures, says Jim Laurie, a former ABC and NBC correspondent who now consults for China Central Television (which is also expanding abroad). “Bottom line is so important,” Laurie continues, that “if you see a source of video that is reasonably good, reasonably reliable, and reasonably inexpensive, you’ll access it.”

So far the more established wire services seem to be taking a philosophical approach. The AP declined to comment, and AFP didn't respond to a request for comment by press time. But Reuters sees Xinhua’s expansion as a sign of “the viability of the global landscape,” a view shared by many media analysts, who believe Xinhua’s popularity in emerging markets will be fleeting, a stop-gap until private news outlets can afford the higher-quality wires. To help companies make the jump, all three agencies offer coverage on a more affordable, à la carte basis (just global sports news, for instance). But this view assumes that Xinhua will be seen as a propaganda outlet for years to come.

In recent months, Xinhua has worked to change that image, partnering with the United Nations Children’s Fund to cover the well-being of children on six continents, and installing dozens of public flat-screen televisions around Europe to show its feed. And even if the agency fails to improve its image, naked bias is not a handicap the way it was for TASS, the Soviet Union’s 100-bureau news agency during the Cold War. True, Xinhua’s coverage of the United States is hardly fair and balanced. Earlier this year, when the Pentagon unveiled a report on China’s military ambitions, it was brushed aside by Xinhua, which called it “ ‘unprofessional,’ guilty of ambiguities and inconsistencies.” But to many the Chinese perspective now seems like just another ideological choice on the dial, an option as valid as Al-Jazeera, Fox News, or MSNBC. An African or Asian newspaper editor might find the bias less annoying than the Pentagon does, says Minxin Pei, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

A bigger problem is the fact that Xinhua is often face-rakingly boring, as one would expect from an organization that believes “news coverage should help beef up the confidence of the market and unity of the nation.” A recent piece about Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao revealed how he had “mixed up his rock types” during a talk with schoolchildren and then owned up to it. CHINA’S PREMIER WINS PRAISE AS ROCK OF RESPONSIBILITY Read the headline. For real information, even government officials are known to read Western outlets. The rest of the world may continue to do the same.

With Angela Wu and R. M. Schneiderman


Is China's Xinhua the Future of Journalism? - Newsweek

 

[below_freezing]

This article basically says this:

Xinhua is evil propaganda. Western media is the real truth. But because of scheming commies undercutting our prices, they are gaining advantage, although in weak and unprofitable markets. We will win in the end. Only Western news, is real news.

Sincerely,

White man, sellout woman.

 

[topjumper]

This article basically says this:

Xinhua is evil propaganda. Western media is the real truth. But because of scheming commies undercutting our prices, they are gaining advantage, although in weak and unprofitable markets. We will win in the end. Only Western news, is real news.

Sincerely,

White man, sellout woman.

lol... good summary, particularly the final signatures part

 

[siegecrossbow]

All the Propaganda That’s Fit to Print
Why Xinhua, China’s state news agency, could be the future of journalism.

It helps, of course, that Xinhua’s spin diminishes when the news doesn’t involve China. “I read them quite a lot,” says Daniel Bettini, foreign editor for Yedioth Ahronoth, one of Israel’s largest newspapers. Editors in Pakistan and Turkey also praise Xinhua, noting that the language is simple and the quality has improved. “In the second Gulf war they were very good,” says Kamil Erdogdu, China correspondent for Turkey’s state news agency. “They got many things first; I used them many times.” AFP and the European Pressphoto Agency recently agreed to sell Xinhua images abroad. “I’m not convinced [censorship] makes a whole lot of difference” for video and pictures, says Jim Laurie, a former ABC and NBC correspondent who now consults for China Central Television (which is also expanding abroad). “Bottom line is so important,” Laurie continues, that “if you see a source of video that is reasonably good, reasonably reliable, and reasonably inexpensive, you’ll access it.”

I think if sources from countries as different as Israel and Turkey are praising the same paper there is more merit to Xinhua than newsweek is giving credit for.

 

[asianamerican]

Western media is extremely biased, but it is very subtle. They steer the course of an article but lacing it with their own version. It is amazing really. Propaganda and media was pretty mucg invented and perfected in the West.

They will quote "" ambigous sources, misplace " " to sow doubts, use language to drive reader's emotions.

Chinese and other Asiaictic language are not as flexible as English and other European language when it comes to propaganda. That is why it is so effective. The more people learn English and read Western news, the more they will be brainwashed.

The Western media have sold the world the "white is right" mentality. Many are eating it up. Why else do you see Indian men lightening their skin? And people treating whites with more deference than their own people.

Look at how the Western sold the Iraq war on a bunch lies.

Xinhua need to stop being to Sino-centric and teach their journalist how to write better "stories". That is the different between Western media, they write good "stories", their own stories and narrative.

Xinhua articles are short and bland. People don't want news. They want stories.

 

[challenger]

Western media is extremely biased, but it is very subtle. They steer the course of an article but lacing it with their own version. It is amazing really. Propaganda and media was pretty mucg invented and perfected in the West.

They will quote "" ambigous sources, misplace " " to sow doubts, use language to drive reader's emotions.

Chinese and other Asiaictic language are not as flexible as English and other European language when it comes to propaganda. That is why it is so effective. The more people learn English and read Western news, the more they will be brainwashed.

The Western media have sold the world the "white is right" mentality. Many are eating it up. Why else do you see Indian men lightening their skin? And people treating whites with more deference than their own people.

Look at how the Western sold the Iraq war on a bunch lies.

Xinhua need to stop being to Sino-centric and teach their journalist how to write better "stories". That is the different between Western media, they write good "stories", their own stories and narrative.

Xinhua articles are short and bland. People don't want news. They want stories.

Exactly. Chinese media seems to be unaware of how to assert Chinese point of view in a strong and attractive way. Sharper thrilling words need to be used in the stories.

Xinhua articles seem to be naive, immature, dull and boring.

 

[gpit]

No newspaper is not biased in one way or the other. Western propagandas are good at picking at China. Often, when they have to praise China for one thing, they must add “but…” to negate 10 times more. It was especially so decades ago.

Nonetheless, if an American newspaper always praises China and condemns US, it will go bankrupt in this country. The same applies to the Chinese newspapers.

But, for wiser people, they won’t turn a deaf ear to different opinions/views.

So, be realistic as to tolerate some "bigotry", and at the same time let the competition of IQ and knowledge begin. Meanwhile, please don’t deny a fact : wealth is important to gain the floor.

Per the article, it’s full of pitiful sour grape mentality and losers' whining. The fools are never be able to dig deeper to ask why “there’s hunger for non-Western perspectives.”

 

[CardSharp]

Pretty much knew what it was going to be about before I read it. Espcially when you see who posted it (troll) and the fact that it's Newsweek.

 

[Renegade]

Pretty much knew what it was going to be about before I read it. Espcially when you see who posted it (troll) and the fact that it's Newsweek.

I don't see how this is contributing to the discussion. If you have anything to say about the topic, then do so or else go troll on some another thread kid. Looks like you have an axe to grind.

Btw, if next time you know what it is going to be about, then save us the trouble and don't read it. Its kind of moronic isn't like shooting yourself in the foot.

 

[no_name]

China should report news objectively. (of course a little bias towards the government is always expected.) We should not resort to word play and lose our credibility. This is the slow way but in the long run we will become more credible. People are not stupid. Results speaks louder than words.

 

[scuthan]

I don't think Western Media are less biased than Xinhua. anyone who read xinhua and western media routinely will necessarily come the conclusion that Xinhua is much more neutral when it comes to international news.

the news about china appearing on western media i've read (e.g., NYT, BBC, CNN)are typically ill propaganda, using anti-china source without any credibility, distorted and fake facts to brainwash their people, sick language which is almost identical to what we used in cultural revolution era's propaganda. you can't find a single piece of news on china that is positive on western media, all of them hold the same point of view, because not criticizing china is politically incorrect. that is what they called independent media。

i clearly remember how NYT reported the Urumqi riot happened on 07/05/2008, when terrorists set hundreds of shops and 150 buses on fire, slaughter 200 innocent people in the street.

"on july 5, hundreds of uyghurs protested against the oppression of chinese government in the street of urumqi, the capital city of Xinjiang, an oil-rich muslim province in west china, cracked down by chinese police, 200 people died according to china's state-controlled media Xinhua"

 

[navida]

the news about china appearing on western media i've read (e.g., NYT, BBC, CNN)are typically ill propaganda, using anti-china source without any credibility, distorted and fake facts to brainwash their people, sick language which is almost identical to what we used in cultural revolution era's propaganda. you can't find a single piece of news on china that is positive on western media, all of them hold the same point of view, because not criticizing china is politically incorrect. that is what they called independent media。

I double that. If it is China , the western media mostly covers mine accidents, pollution and human rights issues. If India its *****, poverty and caste system. Pakistan is all about terrorism and the list goes on.. They shove their stereotyping into people's throat.

On the other had, Chinese media is annoyingly boring , like watching teletubbies. Everything is rosy and happy.

 

[scuthan]

On the other had, Chinese media is annoyingly boring , like watching teletubbies. Everything is rosy and happy.

you said that because western media told you and you have never read chinese media. that is exaclty what they want you know about china

Chinese media present a higher percentage of negative domestic news than here in United States. you can easily physical experience it by clicking any one of china's leading web portal (163.com sina.com.cn).

Violent crime, corruption of officials, privilege abuse and intransparency of government, pollution, mine accident, illegal land aquisition. These eye catching themes are invariably the favourite of chinese media. Even Global Times (a nationalistic media belongs to people's daily) criticised Chinese goverment for internet censorship, not to mention liberals' media

numerous mine accidents and toxic milk power scandal widely used for china-bashing in western media are also disclosed by CCTV and xinhua.

 

[Renegade]

What is interesting here is that none of my Chinese friends have contested the facts in the Newsweek article, but are more comfortable labeling it as propaganda & calling reporters as traitors. Lets see some facts being contested here & these accusations justified on rational grounds.

 

[siegecrossbow]

What is interesting here is that none of my Chinese friends have contested the facts in the Newsweek article, but are more comfortable labeling it as propaganda & calling reporters as traitors. Lets see some facts being contested here & these accusations justified on rational grounds.

I think your accusation that non of our "Chinese friends" are contesting the facts presented by newsweek is a bit unfair.

Xinhua articles seem to be naive, immature, dull and boring.

Xinhua need to stop being to Sino-centric and teach their journalist how to write better "stories". That is the different between Western media, they write good "stories", their own stories and narrative.
Xinhua articles are short and bland. People don't want news. They want stories