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Century Weekly is the Chinese-language outlet of Hu Shuli, who quit her well-known Caijing business magazine last year, taking dozens of reporters who said censorship and budget constraints stifled their combative coverage.
Now Hu has taken over and renamed a much less prominent magazine, vowing in the new issue to "continue defending and advancing journalistic professionalism."
The venture will be closely watched as a test of the direction of Chinese media at a time when the ruling Communist Party has prescribed an awkward mix of commercial reforms and continued state control and censorship for the sector.
"There'll certainly be a lot of attention on us, some welcome, some not," said one editor who joined Hu's new venture. He requested anonymity citing magazine rules on interviews.
"We believe the broader trend is toward greater transparency and opening, but it will be up to us to handle the balance between going too far and going backwards."
Century Weekly reported on the controversial jailing of a lawyer, an oil spill and a deadly accident at a half-built airport -- nothing exceptional in today's China, where the Party allows expanding coverage of social ills and misdeeds, while drawing a red line on issues directly challenging key policies.
The new magazine has emerged while the government has announced plans to refashion fragmented, often musty print outlets into nimble and profitable conglomerates.
The General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) spelled out these plans at the start of this year, saying in a policy document that private investment would be expanded and emerging conglomerates encouraged to list on stock markets.
But against these ambitions stands the Party's determination to maintain control of media content.
"What the reform is about is taking what were propaganda tools and refashioning them as enterprises," said David Bandurski of Hong Kong University, who studies China's news media.
"But don't forget that these are state-owned enterprises, and the Chinese Communist Party exercises strong leadership and control over all state-owned enterprises."
Journalists, outlets and investors will continue navigating murky policy shoals on what is permitted. Foreign investors are likely to remain closely hemmed in by restrictions on investment levels and areas as well as barriers to control over content.
"The government wants some foreign participation to help upgrade the management, the soft skills, of its media," said David Wolf, who advises companies on China's media market.
"But it (China) doesn't need the money, and therefore there's no need to cede control."
China's growing economy, 1.3 billion consumers, state subsidies and advertisers' continued confidence in print have helped its newspapers and magazines weather the past few years better than many developed countries' traditional media.
China had 9,549 magazine and 1,943 newspapers titles in 2008, according to GAPP, some of them barely read ideological tracts.
Glossy magazines on fashion, health, travel and lifestyle interests of the growing middle class spill from stalls.
While most come under the ultimate ownership and control of the Party, newer titles often have commercial investors and some are keen to attract readers with critical reporting.
"Media professionals have for some time been able to use the chaos of China's media environment to their advantage," said Bandurski of Hong Kong University.
China wants to harness commercial forces to create media that can project Chinese ideas and values to a changing public and a wider world, said Yu Guoming, an expert on the media sector.
"The reforms will create greater diversity and competition in the sector," said Yu. He said censors could also giver greater leeway to some titles in an effort to modernize the sector.
"Different media will be subject to different standards. Key papers will remain the Party's mouthpiece, but commercial media will be expected to play less of a propaganda role."
But while the sector may become more competitive, regulatory shoals are likely to deter adventurous journalism and investors.
GAPP's documents on media reform make clear that reforms are intended to buttress state control, not undermine it.
Fan Weiping of the GAPP told reporters last week that there would not be any change in modes of censorship due to the reforms.
(Editing by Benjamin Kang Lim) |
