To connect or to discover, it is a huge question for China Daily and Global Times

About the newly launched Global Times and other English language media outlets in China.

For those who may have further interest in the above staff, please see more here.
Global Times launched its English edition to a lack of fanfare. And lack of fanfare pretty much sums up the new newspaper.
The venture was originally marketed as a new international mouthpiece for the Chinese media. Unfortunately, readers who expected a hard-line alternative to China Daily are going to be sorrily disappointed. Gone are the angry and rash editorials of the Chinese edition (which would have at least brought a chuckle during the morning commute); in their place is the same bland middle-of-the-roadism China Daily is known for.
Now, that may be because the editorial section of the Global Times website is full of Xinhua editorials (it’s not clear if editorials by Times writers will becoming later), or it could be that the hard-line stance of the Chinese edition was felt to do more harm than good in convincing international audiences of Beijing’s point of view.
There are some longer pieces that from their titles suggest longer in-depth analysis, but in reality only scratch the surface. “The True Picture of China’s Catholics” briefly compares China’s underground Catholic churches with the Beijing-backed Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, and goes little further than a vague warning that members of the underground churches may come under the influence of forces “hostile to China.”
A piece on “human-flesh search engines,” the real-life searches by internet vigilantes for people viewed as having committed injustices, is three pages long, and makes sure to emphasize how the technique operates in a gray area that Beijing disapproves of.
Perhaps we got our hopes up too much. Global Times is state-run media, after all. Its job is to purvey Beijing’s view on the issues of the day to the world, and it is going to do so in a way that is acceptable to the government. Beijing wants to play it safe, and we can therefore count on Global Times to be as exciting and ground-breaking as, well, China Daily.
Readers with any remaining hopes that the Global Times could represent a vital new voice in English-language media in China should simply compare the slogans of the websites of the following English-language media outlets:
Xinhua: “Publicize China, Report the World”
China Daily: “Connecting China, Connecting the World”
Global Times: “Discover China, Discover the World”
A stupid Forbes View, but worth reading
On April 30, China's State Council banned "foreign financial information providers" from undertaking "news gathering activities" inside the country. The new measure appears inconsistent with Beijing's agreement, reached last November with Canada, the European Union and the U.S., to withdraw rules that severely restricted the activities of foreign news organizations. The withdrawn rules were clearly in violation of China's World Trade Organization obligations.

While Beijing was further restricting foreign media in China, the country's Communist Party was launching its English-language Global Times newspaper. This publication, which joins an existing Chinese-language tabloid of the same name, is a product of Beijing's latest initiative to create international media giants.

The primary beneficiaries of Beijing's media-building efforts, first revealed this January by Hong Kong's South China Morning Post, will be state broadcaster China Central Television, better known as CCTV; the Communist Party's flagship publication, People's Daily, and state-run Xinhua News Agency.

In addition to the new Global Times, Beijing's media initiative contemplates that Xinhua will almost double the number of its bureaus so that it will have offices in almost every country; CCTV will add Russian and Arabic channels to its Chinese and other language broadcasting and Xinhua will begin a worldwide 24-hour news channel on the model of Al Jazeera.

The new Global Times, in an editorial issued on its launch date, stated that it would "strive to reveal a complete and true picture of China" and that it is "dedicated to conveying the original voices of Chinese people," but it is almost impossible for a Communist Party publication to do any of this. What the paper really meant is what Beijing said in January: Its goal is to "better convey a good image of China to the world." That's a difficult task for Beijing. Unfortunately for the one-party state, many of its messages sound off-key or, worse, belligerent.

So it's no surprise that Beijing's publications often appear propagandistic. Even when they don't, they look bland, especially the official China Daily, which just launched a U.S. edition this February. (Plus CBN recently launched news center in U.S.)Due to these disadvantages, if the Chinese people had a real choice, state media would be commercially unviable in China. And, despite recent improvements in presentation and content, some of it already is.

So how will the Communist Party's media survive outside the Chinese homeland? To overcome the handicap, the Ministry of Finance will be supporting Beijing's January plan to the tune of 45 billion yuan--about $6.6 billion--in grants and subsidies. Undoubtedly, the Chinese central government will be providing more assistance when this initial funding runs out.

The subsidies inevitably raise a trade issue. Xinhua, CCTV and People's Daily all will be competing with privately owned media that is not supported by government grants. Moreover, there is an even more important trade question. The Chinese central government blocks Voice of America and Radio Free Asia and severely restricts CNN and other privately owned networks, of course. Yet at the same time, CCTV is allowed to distribute widely its English and Chinese programming on cable in the U.S. So should we allow any Chinese media--TV programming, books, newspapers or magazines--here? The buzz word is "reciprocity," and we should be demanding it.
An updated version of story talking about Chinese media
.......
But former state-run Xian television journalist Ma Xiaoming says that while some
of the more sensitive incidents, such as the protests, were covered
ahead of the Olympics, the domestic Chinese audience never saw these
English-language reports, which were aimed at an international audience.
Now, if there's a problem with a site, they don't just shut down one computer.
They shut down the entire data center."
Blogger Zhou Shuguang"There's no way that you would be able to get news of that
kind just by going to the regular domestic news sites," Ma said.
"This is a pose, to boost China's image in the eyes of the international
community, to address some of the criticisms they have received in the past," he
said.
Stories go unreported? All depends on what you call a story.
"Nothing much has really changed. They still block, detain, and beat up anything
that moves, and keep the lid on the free flow of information," said Ma, who said
Beijing had been less concerned all along with the opinion of the International
Olympics Committee (IOC) than with world public opinion.
"But in fact there were many things we didn't hear about [here in China]...for
example, the mass detentions of petitioners in Beijing, just people wanting to
complain to the government about something, who were shut up en masse in a
detention center in Beijing. There was no reporting of that story," he said.
While foreign media were freed from getting permits to make reporting trips to
other cities and provinces, the new rules appeared forgotten at times by
officials in the heat of sensitive breaking stories.
The detention of two Japanese journalists in Kashgar, in China's northwestern
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and scuffles between security personnel and
Hong Kong television crews filming the rush to buy tickets showed that the new
orders hadn't necessarily filtered down to ground level.
And controls on China's growing body of bloggers and citizen journalists, often
young people without formal journalism training, had grown as the Olympics
approached.(show your figures lazy man)
Prominent blogger and citizen journalist Zhou Shuguang, known online as Zuola,
who gained a following covering the "nailhouse" couple holding out against
eviction in the southwestern city of Chongqing, said he had been allowed to
cover that story without interference and report on a campaign in the
southeastern port city of Xiamen against a planned chemical plant.
Warning to blogger
But just ahead of the Olympics opening ceremony, he received visits from local
officials warning him against trying to travel to Beijing during the Olympics.
Anywhere else was fine, just not Beijing, they said.
"I was told by one of them, a government official...that he read my blog every
day," Zhou said.
"The controls have been extremely tight recently. Now, if there's a problem with
a site, they don't just shut down one computer—they shut down the entire data
center. It's very strict."
But according to the ousted former editor of Baixing magazine, Huang Liangtian,
the collision of values surrounding freedom of information that occurred is
still likely to have an impact on Chinese officials.
"The Olympics was the occasion on which it was recognized that China's society
is still very closed," said Huang, who was relieved of his editorship of the
magazine after it published an expose of forced evictions in the eastern city of
Jiangyin.
"In promising a freer media as part of the Olympics deal, China made a
connection with the international community. But there is still a big gap
between them. The authorities now are slowly beginning to recognize that gap.
Some of this process has been very painful," Huang added.
Growing professionalism among Chinese media. That's the point, baby
But Huang also said the Chinese domestic media had grown in professionalism in
recent months and years, despite constant government controls on what it could
do.
"There has also been a recognition that there is a social attitude that is
specific to the media, which has its own existence, whether or not you try to
control it," he said. "Also, that sometimes you can control it and sometimes you
can't. Now they are aware of the media as a social force."
Ma said the concept of press freedom in China had implications at many levels,
and that information was blocked by the authorities in many different ways.
"We're not just talking about newsgathering. We're talking about the freedom of
opinion, to gather news, and the freedom to publish or broadcast it. On top of
that there is the freedom on the part of the audience to read, hear, or watch
whatever they like," he said, citing jamming of international broadcasts by the
authorities.
"It's the same with the Internet...There are a great many sites you can't access
if you just use normal browsing methods, as opposed to special methods to get
around the blockages," he said.
"There are huge stories and small stories every day which just pass the Chinese
people by. That's why I tell people that they shouldn't bother commenting on
current affairs. I'm not even sure that I should be commenting. Because opinions
are formed from the facts, right? If you don't even know the true situation, how
can you have an opinion about it?"
Milk scandal cover-up
The unfolding public health crisis sparked by the tainted milk powder scandal—a
story kept under wraps until after the Olympics had concluded—has highlighted
both to domestic and overseas audiences how the government approach to
information focused on its restriction, rather than its usefulness to ordinary
people.
Sanlu Group, the Shijiazhuang-based company at the center of the scare, was
revealed to have asked for government help to cover up the extent of the
problem.
And the official Communist Party People's Daily newspaper, in an apparent bid to
regain public trust in the government, quoted Shijiazhuang city government
spokesman Wang Jianguo as saying Sanlu Group had sought help in "managing" the
media response to the case when it first learned of the matter on Aug. 2, six
days before the opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing.
China has already said the city government in Shijiazhuang, home to the Sanlu
Group whose contaminated milk sparked a recall that has now spread worldwide,
sat on a report from the company about the tainting for more than a month, while
Beijing hosted the Olympic Games.
"Please, can the government increase control and coordination of the media, to
create a good environment for the recall of the company's problem products," the
People's Daily cited the letter from Sanlu as asking.
"This is to avoid whipping up the issue and creating a negative influence in
society," it added.
(Part of the original reporting in Mandarin by Bai Fan. Mandarin service director: Jennifer
Chou. Translated and written for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by
Sarah Jackson-Han.)