Xinhua News Agency
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| Type | Broadcast radio, television and online |
|---|---|
| Country | People's Republic of China |
| Founded | 1931 |
| Broadcast area | Mainland China, Satellite, Internet |
| Area | Mainland China |
| Owner | SASAC |
| Official Website | Xinhua News Agency (English) |
The Xinhua News Agency (simplified Chinese: 新华通讯社; traditional Chinese: 新華通訊社; pinyin: Xīnhuá tōngxùnshè, IPA: [ˈɕīːn ˌxuá], sheen′·hwah, literally "New China News Agency") is the official press agency of the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the biggest center for collecting information and press conferences in the PRC. It is the largest news agency in the PRC, ahead of the China News Service. Xinhua is subordinate to the PRC State Council and reports to the Communist Party of China's Publicity and Public Information Departments.
Xinhua employs more than 10,000 people—as compared to about 55,000 for Thompson Reuters; has 107 bureaus worldwide both collecting information on other countries and dispensing information about China; and maintains 31 bureaus in China—one for each province plus a military bureau. As most of the newspapers in China cannot afford to station correspondents abroad, or even in every Chinese province, they rely on Xinhua feeds to fill their pages. People's Daily, for example, uses Xinhua material for approximately 25 percent of its stories. Xinhua is a publisher as well as a news agency—it owns more than 20 newspapers and a dozen magazines, and it prints in eight languages: Chinese, English, Spanish, French, Russian, Portuguese, Arabic and Japanese.
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[edit] History
The Xinhua press agency was started in November 1931 as the Red China News Agency and changed to its current name in 1937.[1] During the Pacific War the agency developed overseas broadcasting capabilities and established its first overseas branches.[1] It began broadcasting to foreign countries in English from 1944. When the communists took power in China, the agency represented the Chinese Communist Party in countries and territories with which it had no diplomatic representation, such as Hong Kong.[1]
The agency was described as the "eyes and tongue" of the Party, observing what is important for the masses and passing on the information.[2] A former Xinhua director, Zheng Tao, noted that the agency was a bridge between the Party, the government and the people, communicating both the demands of the people and the policies of the Party.[3]
Like many other media organizations, Xinhua struggled to find the "right line" to use in covering the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Although more cautious than People's Daily in its treatment of sensitive topics during that period — such as how to commemorate reformist Communist Party leader Hu Yaobang's April 1989 death, the then ongoing demonstrations in Beijing and elsewhere, and basic questions of press freedom and individual rights — Xinhua gave some favorable coverage to demonstrators and intellectuals who were questioning top party leaders. Even so, many Xinhua reporters were angry with top editors for not going far enough and for suppressing stories about the Tiananmen Square crackdown. For several days after the violence on 4 June, almost no-one at Xinhua did any work, and journalists demonstrated inside the Agency's Beijing compound. Government control of the media increased after the protests — top editors at the agency's bureaux in Hong Kong and Macau were replaced with appointees who were "loyal to the mainland" rather than those with ties to either Hong Kong or Macau.[4]
[edit] Finance
In the past, Xinhua was able to attract the top young journalists emerging from the universities or otherwise newly entering the field, but it can no longer do so as easily because of the appeal and resources of other newspapers and periodicals and the greater glamour of television and radio jobs.[citation needed] For example, mid-level reporters for the Xinmin Evening News in Shanghai often are given an apartment, whereas at Xinhua and People's Daily this benefit is reserved for the most senior journalists.
Beijing has been cutting funding to the news agency by an average of seven percent per year over the past three years, and state funds currently cover only about 40 percent of Xinhua's costs. As a result, the agency is raising revenues through involvement in public relations, construction, and information service businesses.
[edit] Reach
Today, Xinhua News Agency delivers its news across the world in six languages: Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish, and Arabic, as well as news pictures and other kinds of news. It has made contracts to exchange news and news pictures with more than eighty foreign news agencies or political news departments. Xinhua is also responsible for handling, and in some cases, censoring reports from foreign media destined for release in China.[5]
The agency recently began to converge its news and electronic media coverage and has increased its English coverage through its wire service and chinaview.ca web site. Xinhua recently acquired commercial real estate on New York's Times Square and is developing a staff of top-tier English-language reporters. Xinhua has also started an English-language satellite news network. [6]
[edit] Internal media
The Chinese media's internal publication system, in which certain journals are published exclusively for government and party officials, provides information and analysis not generally available to the public. The State values these internal reports because they contain much of China's most sensitive, controversial, and high-quality investigative journalism.
Xinhua and many other Chinese media organizations produce reports for the "internal" journals. Informed observers note that journalists generally like to write for the internal publications—typically, only the most senior or most capable print and broadcast reporters are given such opportunities — because they can write less polemical and more comprehensive stories without having to omit unwelcome details as is commonly done in the print media directed to the general public. The internal reports, written from a large number of countries, typically consist of in depth analyses of international situations and domestic attitudes towards regional issues and a certain country's perception of China.[7]
The Chinese government's internal media publication system follows a strict hierarchical pattern designed to facilitate party control. A publication called Reference News—which includes translated articles from abroad as well as news and commentary by senior Xinhua reporters—is delivered by Xinhua personnel, rather than by the national mail system, to officials at the working level and above. A three-to-ten-page report called Internal Reference (Neibu Cankao) is distributed to officials at the ministerial level and higher. One example was the first reports on the SARS outbreak by Xinhua which only government officials were allowed to see.[8] The most highly classified Xinhua internal reports, known as "redhead reference" (Hong Tou Cankao) reports, are issued occasionally to the top dozen or so party and government officials.
There are signs that the internal publication system is breaking down as more information becomes widely available in China. A Hong Kong-based political journal circulated on the Chinese mainland has questioned the need for such a system in light of China's modern telecommunications and expanding contacts with the outside world. Internal publications are becoming less exclusive; some are now being sold illegally on the street and are increasingly available to anyone with money.
[edit] Headquarters and regional sectors
The Xinhua headquarters is located in Beijing. The Xinhua News Agency established its first overseas affiliate in 1947 in London, with Samuel Chinque as publisher.[9] Now it distributes its news in Asia, Middle East, Latin America, Africa where run the superior offices; in Hong Kong, Macau and many foreign countries and districts. There are more than one hundred Xinhua affiliates.
[edit] Xinhua in Hong Kong
Xinhua's branch in Hong Kong was not just a press office. It was named a news agency under the special historic conditions before the territory's sovereignty was transferred from Britain to the PRC, because the PRC did not recognise British sovereignty over the colony, and an embassy cannot be set up within what it considered its soil. Until 1997, it served as the de facto diplomatic mission of the PRC in the territory. It was authorized by the special administrative region government to continue to represent the central government after 1997, and it was renamed The Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong SAR on 18 January 2000. The State Council appointed Gao Siren (高祀仁) as the director in August 2002. After renaming as liaison office, a Xinhua Agency which is a true press office was set up.
As suggested by the name change, Xinhua's present role is mainly about liaison with the broad spectrum of groups and associations in Hong Kong, or what is known as "united front" work in the terminology of the Communist Party of China.
According to some press reports in Hong Kong, the Liaison Office was under pressure from Beijing after the 1 July mass protest in 2003. Beijing officials reportedly criticised the Liaison Office for its inaccurate assessment of the public sentiment in Hong Kong during that period.
The former Hong Kong headquarters of Xinhua in Wan Chai was vacated in 2001, when the office relocated to Sai Wan, and sold in September 2002. The 23-storey building will be converted back into a four-star hotel with 480 rooms. Located at 387 Queen's Road East, the 1970s building had been Xinhua's home for more than 20 years.
[edit] Previous directors of Hong Kong Xinhua
Xu Jiatun (許家屯) headed the Hong Kong branch of Xinhua until 1990, when he fled to the United States amid accusations that he sympathized with Beijing students during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
Xu angered Beijing when he comforted Hong Kong students who staged a hunger strike outside the Xinhua office in support of the pro-democracy movement in Beijing in 1989. Years after, he joined to appeal for a reversal of the official verdict that the demonstrations were a "counter-revolutionary rebellion".
Zhou Nan (周南) succeeded exiled Xu Jiatun as the director of Xinhua in Hong Kong after the 1989 Tiananmen Square Crackdown. Zhou henceforth played a key role in the 13-year Sino-British argument on the handover in 1997.
During the hostile years, Zhou named Hong Kong's last governor Chris Patten as a 'sinner of a thousand years'. He said Patten had committed 'three violations', referring to Patten's political reforms, branded by Beijing as a breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, the Hong Kong Basic Law, and understandings between the two sovereign nations.
Zhang Junsheng (張浚生), former Xinhua vice-director, was brought into the agency by its former Hong Kong director, Xu Jiatun, in 1985. He was one of the few pre-1989 staff to survive the post-Tiananmen purge. For 13 years, he was one of the few Xinhua officers who enjoy publicity by building up contacts in the film and arts world as the agency's cultural attaché.
His most famous manoeuvre was to repeat criticism of the Bill of Rights made in confidence by then-chief justice Sir Ti Liang Yang. Zhang also openly called Hong Kong's last governor Chris Patten a liar. He accused Patten of trying to create chaos in the civil service by undermining its neutrality.
[edit] Xinhua in Macau
A Xinhua News Agency branch was set up in Macau in the late 1980s. The News Department of the Xinhua Macau Branch, a working organ sent by the central people's government of the PRC, is responsible for gathering news. The latter was renamed the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Macau SAR in 2000.[10]
[edit] Xinhua in Cairo
Xinhua opened its Middle East Regional Bureau in Cairo, Egypt in 1985. Later, on November 26, 2005, Xinhua News Agency opened a new office building alongside the Nile River in Cairo's Maadi district.[11]
[edit] Xinhua online
The Xinhua News Agency runs the prominent news website Xinhuanet.com, which provides news in six different languages. The domain xinhuanet.com attracted 430,000 unique visitors between February 2008 and February 2009 according to a Compete.com survey.[12]. According to McAfee SiteAdvisor, the website may distribute adware including the Alexa toolbar.[13]
[edit] Partnerships
In 2001, Hong Kong-listed media company Sing Tao News Corporation Limited invested in joint ventures with Xinhua News Agency to set up a market information Web site and offer audio and visual services planning and consulting.
[edit] Tantao News
In its drive to globalize its content and reach new audiences, Xinhua has entered into a partnership with CNEWSCO, LLC, an apolitical American company. A key element of the relationship is the editorial freedom CNEWSCO enjoys to select and publish Xinhua multimedia content under a new brand Tantao. The Tantao Global News Network focuses on providing global news coverage on a variety of topics and perspectives originating mainly from Chinese news and media sources. Content is aggregated, published and syndicated from major Chinese news organizations including the Xinhua News Agency, Shanghai Media Group, China Central Television America, and others sources.
[edit] Credibility
Bloomberg Businessweek commented on the opening of Xinhua Finance, saying that it would have to overcome the "Xinhua stigma" of being associated with "official propaganda", and suspicions by outsiders of its credibility.[14] In an interview with Indian media in 2007, the head of Xinhua, Tian Congmin, affirmed the problem of "historical setbacks and popular perceptions".[15] Newsweek, while criticizing Xinhua for being "face-rakingly boring" and for having "blind spots" on controversial news in China, notes that "Xinhua's spin diminishes when the news doesn't involve China". The Turkish state news agency has praised its coverage of the Second Gulf War,[16] and Electronic Intifada described its coverage of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict as "accurate".[17]
During the 2003 SARS outbreak, Xinhua was slow to release reports of the incident to the public. However, its reporting in the aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake was seen in as more transparent and credible as Xinhua journalists operated more freely.[18][19] After the Beijing Television Cultural Center fire, cognizant of Xinhua's "tardy" reporting in contrast to bloggers, China announced the investment of 20 billion yuan to Xinhua. The vice president of the China International Publishing Group commented on this, saying that quantity of media exposure would not necessarily help perceptions of China. Rather, he said, media should focus on emphasizing Chinese culture and the Chinese way of life "to convey the message that China is a friend, not an enemy".[20]
Xinhua for its own part has criticized the perception of Western media objectivity, citing an incident during the 2008 Tibetan unrest when Western media outlets used a picture of Nepalese police beating Tibetan protesters, misleadingly labeling the pictures as of Chinese police,[21] with commentary from CNN calling Chinese leaders "goons and thugs". CNN later apologized for the comments,[22] but Richard Spencer of The Sunday Telegraph defended what he conceded was "biased" Western media coverage of the riots, blaming China for not allowing foreign media access to Tibet during them.[23]
[edit] See also
- China Xinhua News Network Corporation
- China Securities Journal
- Media of the People's Republic of China
[edit] References
- ^ a b c Pares, Susan. (2005). A political and economic dictionary of East Asia. Routledge. ISBN 978-1857432589
- ^ Malek, Abbas & Kavoori, Ananadam. (1999). The global dynamics of news: studies in international news coverage and news agenda. p. 346. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1567504620
- ^ Markham, James. (1967) Voices of the Red Giants. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press.
- ^ Li, Jinquan & Lee, Chin-Chuan. (2000). Power, Money, and Media: Communication Patterns and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China. p. 298. Northwestern University Press. ISBN 978-0810117877
- ^ Glasser, Chris & Winkler, Matthew. (2009). International Libel and Privacy Handbook: A Global Reference for Journalists, Publishers, Webmasters, and Lawyers. Bloomberg Press. ISBN 978-1576603246
- ^ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704334604575339281420753918.html
- ^ Lampton, David (2001). The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy in the Era of Reform, 1978-2000: 1978-2000. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0804740562
- ^ The Economist, "Chinese whispers: Not believing what they read in the papers, China’s leaders commission their own ", June 19th, 2010, p. 43.
- ^ Samuel Chinque obituary, The Guardian, December 17, 2004
- ^ Jiang Enzhu Briefs Media on Renaming of Xinhua Branches in HK, Macao, People's Daily Online, January 18, 2000
- ^ New office building of Xinhua Middle East regional bureau opens in Cairo 2005/11/26
- ^ SnapShot of xinhuanet.com, Compete.com
- ^ [1], Siteadvisor.com
- ^ Bloomberg, Reuters--and Xinhua?, BusinessWeek, February 17, 2003
- ^ Q&A: 'Our credibility is doubted to a certain degree', Times of India, September 28, 2007.
- ^ Fish, Isaac Stone; Dokoupil, Tony (2010-09-03). "Is China's Xinhua the Future of Journalism?". Newsweek. http://www.newsweek.com/2010/09/03/is-china-s-xinhua-the-future-of-journalism.html. Retrieved 2010-09-05.
- ^ Abunimah, Ali (2002-08-01). "Media Distortions and the UN Report on Jenin". Electronic Intifada. http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article499.shtml. Retrieved 2010-09-05.
- ^ Quake coverage 'testing China's media credibility', Radio Australia, May 16, 2008
- ^ Quake Moves Xinhua Past Propaganda, Newser, May 13, 2008
- ^ China to spend billions to boost media credibility, Radio86, March 10, 2009
- ^ Commentary: Biased Media Reports Reveal Credibility Crisis, Xinhua, March 26, 2008
- ^ China: CNN Apologizes Over Tibet Comments
- ^ Spencer, Richard (2008-03-28). "Bias over Tibet cuts both ways". The Sunday Telegraph. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/richardspencer/3614641/Bias_over_Tibet_cuts_both_ways/. Retrieved 2010-09-05.
Coordinates: 39°53′55.55″N 116°21′54.83″E / 39.8987639°N 116.3652306°E
