{"id":25175,"date":"2012-02-02T00:15:00","date_gmt":"2012-02-02T00:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=25175 "},"modified":"2012-02-02T00:15:00","modified_gmt":"2012-02-02T00:15:00","slug":"25175-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=25175","title":{"rendered":"China\\&#8217;s CCTV Set to Expand, But Growth and Influence Hampered by State Control"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">The killing of a South Korean coast guard officer by a Chinese fisherman should have been tailor-made for China&#8217;s CCTV News as it embarks on an ambitious plan to become a global network with assertive international coverage.<\/span><\/div>\r\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">Instead, according to CCTV employees, the story languished for hours as editors awaited political guidance from above, while would-be competitors such as Qatar&#8217;s Al-Jazeera reported extensively on December&#8217;s attack.<\/span><br \/><\/div>\r\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">In charting its growth, CCTV is closely studying other models, especially Al-Jazeera, which rolled out a global English language 24-hour news network five years ago and quickly made a name for itself.<\/span><\/div>\r\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">Qatar&#8217;s government bankrolled the station as part of its ambitions to parley its massive energy wealth into international influence, much as China is seeking global media stature behooving its booming economy, which now ranks second largest in the world behind the U.S.<\/span><\/div>\r\n<div>&nbsp;<\/div>\r\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">But while Al-Jazeera&#8217;s access and deep knowledge of the Middle East &#8212; and a hands-off approach by its masters &#8212; have been its greatest assets, state-run CCTV&#8217;s emphatic allegiance to the authoritarian communist state and the party seem to be its biggest liability.<\/span><\/div>\r\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">This greatly challenges CCTV&#8217;s credibility and agenda to influence and channel global public opinion, said David Bandurski, editor of the China Media Project website at the University of Hong Kong.<\/span><br \/><\/div>\r\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">&#8220;The role of the media as defined by the (Communist) Party is to serve the party&#8217;s interests,&#8221; Bandurski said.<\/span><\/div>\r\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">A longtime CCTV program producer who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the topic said virtually everything in the news report is decided based on political considerations. The issues are discussed at meetings, but the decision always lies with the top bosses while the journalists have no say in the outcome, she said.<\/span><\/div>\r\n<div>&nbsp;<\/div>\r\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">Still, CCTV is gearing up to supersize its global footprint this year in pursuit of swaying a foreign audience to China&#8217;s views and confronting what Beijing considers the Western media&#8217;s inate anti-China bias.<\/span><\/div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">\r\n<div><br \/><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">The network is opening studios in Washington and Nairobi, Kenya, each employing as many as 200 staffers. Worldwide, it will increase numbers of foreign correspondents from 66 to 80 by the end of 2012, with more to come, according to people familiar with the plans.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\r\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">In Africa, CCTV has linked up with major satellite TV operator MIH Group and plans to operate upward of a dozen offices, according to Martyn J. Davies, director of the Center for Chinese Studies at Stellenbosch University in South Africa who has discussed the expansion with CCTV officials.<\/span><\/div>\r\n<div>&nbsp;<\/div>\r\n<div><span style=\"background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; color: #2d2d2d; font-size: 12pt\"><font face=\"\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">Continue reading&nbsp;<\/span><\/font><a style=\"color: #034af3; text-decoration: none\" href=\"http:\/\/thelede.blogs.nytimes.com\/2011\/12\/05\/journalists-should-be-government-mouthpieces-chinas-state-tv-president-says\/?ref=china#h[]\"><\/a><\/span><a style=\"background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; color: #034af3; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none\" href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/hostednews\/ap\/article\/ALeqM5hN1rnkPOnmNYDpyn_C1L5PV6YrXA?docId=74202f7e4c0e463b949f56ceaa5d5b1c\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt\"><strong>original article<\/strong><\/span><\/a><span style=\"background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial; color: #2d2d2d; font-size: 12pt\">.<\/span><span style=\"background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; color: #2d2d2d; font-size: 14px\"><font face=\"\">&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/font><\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>China&#39;s state-run news organization has global aims, but as the CCP&#39;s mouthpiece its credibility will always be questioned.&amp;nbsp; Nevertheless it plans to open&amp;nbsp; studios in Washington and Nairobi, Kenya, and increase the number of its foreign correspondents. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ChinaHumanRights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}