In step with China

Twenty seven years of China Daily present a sharp contrast, from the June 2, 1981 edition (right) to a May 26, 2008 edition (left), and the online version (center).

Thirty-two years ago, when the disastrous Tangshan earthquake hit the Chinese people amid the chaos of the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), none would have expected that their country would someday become the fourth largest economy in the world.

The key to this great achievement was the Chinese Communist Party led by the late leader Deng Xiaoping who initiated the country's opening-up policy and economic reforms in 1978.

On May 12, China was hit with an even more devastating earthquake in Sichuan province. But the Party leadership shown by President Hu Jintao will surely inspire the 1.3 billion Chinese people to overcome the disaster and greet a successful Beijing Olympics as well as continued economic growth.

Today, both the Chinese and foreign media are sending a barrage of news reports from the rescue operations in Sichuan in response to the worldwide concern for the victims. In doing so they are creating a timely link of information from the disaster-hit zone to the rest of the world.

As the country's largest English-language newspaper, China Daily is sparing no effort to distribute the news of the latest development to the outside world. It immediately dispatched reporters and photographers to the epicenter soon after the earthquake struck.

Birthday

In late 1970s following the reform and opening-up policy there emerged an urgent need for a better channel of communications with the new friends and business partners whose native language is English, and that was why China Daily made its timely debut in June 1981.

China Daily has since helped promote and propel the reform and openin-up drive that inspired its creation.

It was realized thanks to the strong support of the Party and the Chinese government. A team of veteran journalists was organized to prepare for the publication of the first national English-language newspaper in China. As the China Daily project was made known to the public, it received immediate support from both local and international media circles.

Particularly noteworthy was the assistance offered by the UK-based Thomson Foundation, an international media development NGO. The Thomson Foundation sent over experts to help train scores of newly recruited domestic staff who were familiar with the English language but knew little about journalism. The brief training course was vital in building the first group of professionals who later became the backbone of China Daily's editorial staff.

On June 1, 1981, China Daily made its debut, after months of strenuous efforts by dozens of newly trained domestic staff with the help of foreign experts. It was indeed a product of international cooperation made possible by and designed to serve the new reform and opening-up policy.

Since its inauguration, China Daily has emerged as a pioneer in the reform of the country's print media. Most remarkable was its introduction of commercial advertisements, breaking an old taboo for official publications.

With special approval by the Chinese government, the English-language newspaper was the first to be allowed to have an advertisement occupying as much as one-fourth of its pages at a time when all of other State newspapers, such as the People's Daily, the Economic Daily and the Guangming Daily, were not sanctioned to do so.

China Daily's use of large news photos also set an example for its domestic peers who soon followed suit and brought a new look to Chinese newspapers.

"The aim of the media and the aim of the media reform is to give people the news they need and to make the media the voice of the people. Their mission is to give a voice to the people for the matters they want to raise," said a professor of the School of Journalism and Communication, at Renmin University of China.

Content is king

However, due to its limited resources, China Daily had only four pages during its trial-run period. Nevertheless, its small but energetic editorial staff availed themselves of the opportunity created by the country's reform and tried to fill its limited pages with interesting stories reflecting their fast-changing country.

Their efforts paid off as China Daily soon established itself as the most-read-and-quoted English-language mass media on the Chinese mainland.

An example was the publication of Deng Xiaoping's statement regarding the abolition of the Party's old policy of life-long tenure for its leading cadres. When the story appeared on the front page of China Daily on the same day as it also ran in the Party's Chinese-language Red Flag magazine, it caused a big "bang" in the international media circles, and boosted the clout of the young newspaper.

The young China Daily also tried its best to help push the reform forward by exposing hurdles that hampered the newly arriving foreign investors.

In late 1982, a China Daily reporter heard a visiting foreign businessman complain that it took him longer to get a phone call through to his friend in another hotel than to go there by taxi. Our reporter immediately arranged an interview with the director of the Beijing Telecommunication Administration and had the interview published in next day's China Daily.

The report soon caught the attention of both the business sector and the State authorities and resulted in an immediate project to renovate the capital's telephone system.

Since the day it was born, China Daily's progress has been closely linked with the country's changes. There were twists and turns along the path but in 1990 it got a big boost from Beijing's Asian Games, when it moved into a new building site near the Asian Games Village. The paper was only eight pages in 1981 but expanded to 12 pages in 1995 and 16 pages in 2004. In early 1990s it began to recruit more younger staff and published more financially lucrative special supplements for its expansion.

Its growth picked up speed during the 1990s as the country made fresh efforts to host the Olympic Games as well as the membership in the World Trade Organization.

In coordination with the restoration of China's sovereignty over Hong Kong, China Daily began publishing a Hong Kong edition in 1997. Since China formally joined the WTO, the newspaper has become more business-oriented with an expansion of its China Business Weekly edition, and enlarged itself to 24 pages.

Now, China is facing the challenge of digital media. A recent survey shows that out of the Chinese residents under 35, only 10 percent who did read newspapers are now getting most of their news from the Internet.

Another challenge comes from satellite TV. China is putting a satellite in space that is capable of transmitting 300 channels. Internet TV and 3G are also having impacts.

Goes to e-era

To cope with these challenges, China Daily launched its electronic edition in May 1994. It kicked off its online news reporting to the rest of the world with its official website - www.chinadaily.com.cn - in December 1995. It was truly an online news early bird among the country's organizations.

In February this year, China Daily cooperated with China Mobile to introduce the country's first English-Chinese mobile paper to deliver news to cell phone users in the form of multimedia messages. It has now become one of the fastest growing mobile newspapers in the country.

The mobile news market targeted by them is huge. Statistics from the Ministry of Information Industry show that by the end of last year, the country's cell phone users totaled 547 million.

Taking the Beijing Olympic Games as a new opportunity to gain a business boost, China Daily Editor-in-Chief Zhu Ling signed a contract with Jiang Xiaoyu, executive vice-president of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) to publish the official English newspaper for the Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games, as well as Village News in Beijing.

China Daily will expand The Olympian, its current weekly journal in the run-up to the Olympic and Paralympic Games, by up to 48 pages daily during the Games. It will provide both the panorama of international sport and insights into contemporary Chinese society. Jiang said he believes the official newspapers for the Games will be a part of the legacy of the first Olympics held in the nation.

China Daily is setting up a team of outstanding reporters and editors, including an international line-up, to cover the Games, says Zhu.

"We will strive to publish newspapers that appeal to athletes and visitors coming to China, as well as the international community as part of our contribution to the Games," he says.

"Through the impact of the global media, 4 billion people will experience not only the Beijing Games itself, but also an opening-up and transforming of China," Jiang says.

Some 31,600 journalists are expected in Beijing to cover the Games.

China Daily reporter Fu Jing (right) interviews earthquake survivors in Hongbai township of Shifang city in Sichuan province.

As a newspaper group, China Daily also runs China Business Weekly, China Daily Hong Kong Edition, Reports from China, Shanghai Star, Beijing Weekend, 21st Century, 21st Century Teens Senior Edition, 21st Century Teens Junior Edition and the China Daily Website (www.chinadaily.com.cn).

Committed to helping the world know more about China and the country's integration with the international community, China Daily is regarded as one of the country's most authoritative English-language media outlets and an important source of information on Chinese politics, economy, society and culture. It is often called the "Voice of China" or "Window to China". China Daily also serves as important source for high-end Chinese readers who want to know more about the world.

The paper's readers are from all over the world. Domestic readers also include foreigners and high-end nationals, for example, diplomats and governmental policy makers. Overseas subscribers are mostly government officials, members of parliaments, staff members of international organizations and multinationals, professors, researchers and students in universities and institutes.

Headquartered in Beijing, China Daily also has branches in the major cities across the country and correspondents in all major cities in China. English-speaking staff reporters, correspondents and editors with the newspaper group are known for their professionalism, ethics, enthusiasm and creativity. Expatriate staff members from the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and India ensure the newspaper's linguistic standards.

China Daily is the only representative for China in the Asian News Network (ANN), a non-government media organization consisting of 14 major English-language newspapers, whose total circulation is more than 20 million.

China Daily has also launched various platforms for exchanges between China and the outside world; and to date, it has hosted dozens of sessions of the China Daily CEO Roundtable (http://ceoroundtable.chinadaily.com.cn/), a high-profile forum for multinationals doing business in China.

(China Daily 06/02/2008 page2)