Chinese Media Face Similar Challenges of Their Foreign Counterparts
This is an interesting article that rather than simply blasting traditional Chinese state media as mouth-pieces of the Communist Party, it reports they face online, financial, and censorship challenges like any other. There are give and takes between them and the government and business bottom lines are unrelenting.
China’s state-controlled media is not being spared the new media challenges facing its Western counterparts, as publications contend with financial challenges and government influence.
An explosion of traditional and online media outlets – all controlled by the government – has flooded the largest media market in the world.
But Chu Xiaoling, deputy chief editor of the Beijing Daily Group, said newspapers were still under pressure to make money and were feeling the pinch of online media.
“We still don’t have a big audience in new media – maybe just five percent of our total readership – but we have seen a 15 to 20 per cent decline in advertising revenue,” she said.
“Right now, our newspapers rely heavily on traditional print advertising revenue [and] advertising in digital media so far isn’t enough to cover our costs.
“We do use social media such as WeChat and Weibo to promote our stories, but we’re yet to see the impact of that and we don’t charge for our online content.”
Despite the financial challenges, the growth in China’s media has also seen a boom in students studying journalism.
Yang Ying, a student at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, said there were financial challenges for those considering entering the media as well.
“The working environment for journalists is quite tough and the pay is not very high,” she said.
“If you want to be a journalist, you have to be a dreamer or something like that.
“There are also restrictions on media in China sometimes.”
Censorship issues affecting current and prospective journalists
With the government controlling all traditional media in China, both current and prospective journalists also feel those restrictions.
Ms Chu said the Beijing Daily Group was in constant contact with government officials regarding the content of the paper.
“From time to time, they may ask us not to publish certain news, but at the end of the day, it’s up to the editor-in-chief,” she said.
“When we cover important issues, we might present those stories to government officials for accuracy and clarification because our newspapers are led by China’s Communist Party.
“We don’t tend to do that with cultural or social stories though.”
Journalism students say the emergence of new media is allowing more access to information and freedom of communication.
Liu Moxiao said all journalists around the world face pressure from the government over their reporting – not just those in China.
“[But] especially nowadays, China’s investigative reporting is thriving and we have many famous investigative reporters who have unveiled big news,” she said.
“China is a big market – it is too big [with] too many news stories, and there are many bad news stories.
“I think journalists are watchdogs all around the world.”
– ABC (Australia)
Measures to Contain Ebola in China
Expert talk of the growing threat of Ebola spreading to China has the international media abuzz and increasingly scrutinizing the country’s preparedness to contain the highly infectious disease. Noted Belgian microbiologist Peter Piot, co-discoverer of the virus in 1976, warned China is vulnerable given the number of Chinese now resident and working in West Africa. He also presaged that the experience of other viral outbreaks points to the basic ineffectiveness of screening at airports.
China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) declared no Ebola cases in China at present and that health bureaus across the country are upping inspections at ports of entry, notably, in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou where emergency drills have been carried out to deal with potential cases. CNTV (Central Television) quoted Song Shuli, spokesman for the NHFPC as saying, “the country has set up a complete disease control and prevention mechanism following the SARS epidemic and experts believe there is no possibility of a large-scale Ebola outbreak in China.”
With viruses like Ebola, the issue of quarantine is a tricky one for many countries. An impromptu survey of online mainland and Hong Kong Chinese viewers of a debate program on Hong Kong’s Phoenix TV showed over 96% wanting restrictions on visas for West Africans to China. A recent CBS poll conducted in the US late last month indicated that 80% of Americans support mandatory quarantines for US citizens and legal residents arriving from West Africa. 27% even wanted travel bans on West Africans to the US until the virus is contained.
Two weeks ago, the states of New York and New Jersey brought in 21-day mandatory quarantines for all health workers returning from West Africa while US troops that have served in West Africa are also subject to quarantine. The Canadian government announced last Friday that no new travel visas will be issued for residents or citizens of Ebola-stricken countries along with a halt on processing of permanent residency visas for people from affected countries. Australia has also closed its borders to citizens from the three worst-hit countries.
Memories of the SARS outbreak in 2003 when over 5,000 people were infected resulting in 300 deaths partially as a result of initial policy bungling and measures taken since have much better prepared China for any possible outbreak. Interviewed by Bloomberg, Ben Cowling, an associate professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Hong Kong’s School of Public Health remarked: “After SARS, China doesn’t want to be in the same situation again…In the last 10 years, they’ve built up massive capacity to respond to this kind of situation, to avoid damage to public health and prevent the socio-economic problems that arise with it.”
The limited spread of another bird flu strain, H7N9 in the spring of 2013 further firmed Beijing’s determination to fight pandemics by being transparent and cooperative with the World Health Organization (WHO) and other health authorities around the world. Learning from the SARS experience, NHFPC shared samples of the virus with laboratories worldwide to help develop vaccines in case the virus started spreading among humans.
The NHFPC introduced a Ebola control plan back in July, laying out procedures for screening, reporting, and controlling potential infections. In Guangdong, which receives as many as 190 flights from Africa every month, over a two-month period to October 21, local health authorities tracked about 8,700 visitors from Ebola-hit countries of which over 5,000 are longer being monitored. As well, 27 hospitals have been designated to handle possible Ebola cases.
Meanwhile, health checks are being stepped up across the country, especially in Guangzhou where a 100,000+ strong (mainly West African (?)) community resides. Moreover, returning medical personnel who had worked with Ebola patients in West Africa are subject to a battery of tests before entering a mandatory 21-day observation period supervised by local health workers although it is not clear whether they could spend their quarantines at home or at secure isolation units. Any staff developing symptoms would be dispatched to a designated hospital.
For ordinary Chinese returning from Ebola-affected regions, those whose temperatures checked over 37.3 degrees Celsius would be sent to hospitals for further tests. Those without a fever who have had contact with Ebola patients would have to have their temperatures checked twice a day for a period of 21 days. Those who haven’t had contact with Ebola patients are recommended to quarantine themselves at home for 21 days. In addition, the dispatching of virus screening experts to Ebola-affected areas has benefitted the work of public health authorities at home by focusing on pre-emption.
At the same time, however, a major crack remains in China’s wall to contain currently untreatable pathogens such as Ebola – China still has no level 4 biosafety laboratory to conduct scientific research on Ebola. Level 3 facilities can handle widely-known viruses, including HIV, SARS, rabies and yellow fever but not Ebola.
A senior official of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDCP), China’s equivalent of US’s CDC, recently told state media that the country is building a level 4 facility in Wuhan in collaboration with the French. The new lab is scheduled to open early next year and the CCDCP has further plans to build one on its own. But, health officials readily admit that two level 4 labs are far from enough to deal with varied pathogen risks that China will face going forward.
Indonesia Joins China-Led AIIB
Over the past month, the Western press has hyped up the suggestion that three important countries – Australia, South Korea, and Indonesia – are staying out of the founding of the China-initiated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and in so doing diminishing its credibility in the eyes of the world.
Well, Indonesia, the largest economy in ASEAN, has just decided to hop on the bank wagon and Australia said it may join if certain conditions are met. And although the South Koreans deferred when China’s president visited the country, they may still join ranks in the offing.
Of course, the US and Japan are loathe to participate because they see the AIIB as an affront (which it is not) to the ADB and other US-led multilateral financial institutions. However, note that India, a large economy, and key Southeast Asian allies of the US, Singapore and the Philippines, are also founding members. (The ADB is based in Manila.)
China (yesterday) welcomed Indonesia’s decision to join the Beijing-sponsored Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which India along with 21 other countries joined as founding members.
“China welcomes Indonesia’s formal decision to join the AIIB as a founding member at an early date,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a press briefing here.
Indonesia’s announcement came after the visit of Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, where he interacted with the new government.
The Beijing-based bank is expected to be operational by next year.
Calling Indonesia an important economy in Asia, Hong said China has called for joint efforts with countries involved, including Indonesia, to promote early establishment of the AIIB which would serve as a multilateral platform for cooperation.
The 21 countries which signed the MoU include Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, the Philippines, Qatar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
– PTI