OPINION> Alexis Hooi
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OPINION> Alexis Hooi
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Pressing on in a time of turbulence
By Alexis Hooi (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-03-27 07:40
Print is in a precarious situation. Sentinels of the fourth estate across the globe continue to topple as costly newsprint comes up against new media, while struggling business models in the sector are made more unsustainable by falling advertising revenue in a dismal economic climate. Out in the West, venerable publications like the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune are now being forced to scale down their foreign reporting operations as part of the latest cost-cutting measures. This is after their parent, the Tribune Company, which is also the second-biggest newspaper publisher in the United States, filed for bankruptcy last December. The two papers are just some of many trying to stay afloat even as other respected players such as The Christian Science Monitor and Seattle-Post Intelligencer have thrown in the daily print towel and turned online. Naysayers already lament the death of the newspaper and, as such, the end of real journalism as we know it. But latest statistics and trends indicate these could actually be promising times for traditional media in this country. More than a fifth of the population still turn to ink on paper as one of their major sources of information, research from Renmin University of China showed. Similarly, a nationwide biennial survey by the National Research Institute of Publishing Science showed most of more than 20,000 patrons of print picked newspapers first. There is also talk of the government pumping more money for key news agencies to extend their reach on the international stage.
Add to that mix the blogs, bulletin board systems and other forms of "public journalism by citizen reporters" riding on the surging influence of the Internet on the 298 million-strong online population, and the country's media market presents unprecedented opportunities for newspapers and traditional sources of information that are able to adapt to a whole new ball game. From heartbreaking accounts of victims in the devastating May 12 Sichuan earthquake to inspiring tales of record human achievement in the Beijing Olympic Games, major events in the past year have also helped to push the press here to a larger role in the public sphere. The stories generated from these life-changing events have proven again that the news business is the business of serious storytelling. In this growing space offered by the Information Age, the strengths and shortcomings of Chinese media players will also be made more obvious for all to see. Whether it is newspapers striving to maintain a lead in the domestic market or increasingly borderless news portals groping for a grip on the changing tastes of a cyber-audience, the pressure will continue to be on editors and reporters here to provide interesting and valuable information to readers at home and abroad. As Harvard's Nieman Foundation for Journalism curator Bob Giles said at its recent conference on narrative journalism, it is about finding your audiences with different platforms, old and new. Content is king. It is a newsroom adage worth repeating in these turbulent times. New media or not, discussions in any news organization on what goes into products are still doomed to fail if they lose touch with their readers. Because along with front row seats to all the action, your eyeballing will be what really matters to us. E-mail: alexishooi@chinadaily.com.cn (China Daily 03/27/2009 page8) |
