China wants to expand its global media presence to reflect its burgeoning influence on the international stage, and has tapped a few major groups with massive financial backing for the job.
In a symbol of this new ambition, Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) personally opened last week’s inaugural World Media Summit, organized by Xinhua news agency, bringing together executives from 170 media outlets.
In the massive formal reception rooms of the Great Hall of the People on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, foreign delegates applauded as Hu offered a vision of a “true, correct, comprehensive and objective communication of information.”
To the right of Hu sat media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
His News Corp, the Associated Press, Reuters, the BBC, Russia’s ITAR-TASS, Japan’s Kyodo agency, Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) and Google agreed to co-host the so-called “Media Olympics” — organized at great expense by Beijing.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) participated in the debates, most of which related to the challenges of reporting in a digital and multimedia age.
Stung by several high-profile public relations disasters last year, including the chaotic Olympic torch relay, Beijing has tasked two or three signature media groups with projecting the image of a powerful China abroad.
It has earmarked 45 billion yuan (US$6.5 billion) to fund the expansion of groups including Xinhua, state television CCTV and CRI radio, Hong Kong media reported — at a time when the industry is facing a major money crunch elsewhere.
Xinhua — which is planning to add to its 117 bureaus around the world reporting in eight languages — would like to join the tight circle of international news agencies.
“We are in a restructuring phase — we’ve just opened a multimedia desk,” Xinhua president Li Congjun (李從軍) said.
The agency has opened a video service and is starting to offer mobile applications.
CCTV just launched an Arabic-language channel, reaching 300 million people in 22 countries, and is gearing up to start a Russian service.
CRI, which already broadcasts in 43 languages, is also expanding its presence abroad.
China wants to set up media and entertainment conglomerates similar to News Corp or Time Warner, with some private funding.
“As China moves from a domestic-oriented participant to an international industry leader, it will grow its own Time Warner,” said Steve Marcopoto, president and managing director of TBS Asia-Pacific Ltd, part of the Time Warner group.
Murdoch said he was “genuinely looking forward to that competition” from China, but also railed against the “lack of intellectual property protection domestically” and what he called “content kleptomaniacs.”
“There are interesting media companies emerging in China but piracy will make it difficult for them to generate the profits at home that would fuel growth abroad,” he said.
He told summit participants that the groups were “not exposed to the competition that would prepare them for the rigors of the global marketplace,” calling on China to open the “digital door” of its media market.
China has the world’s biggest population of Internet users at 338 million, according to official figures.
Freedom of information, a vital theme to address in a country where the press is subject to tight restrictions, was neither part of the World Media Summit agenda nor was it raised by participants so as not to offend the host.
Clive Marshall, chief executive of the Australian Associated Press, was a notable exception.
“There must be no compromise on the quality of news and no censorship of the news,” he said as he summarized a roundtable discussion on behalf of all its participants.
As for next year, China suffered a setback — none of the co-hosting foreign groups offered to put on a similar event next year.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS