I was just reading New York Times at a dining hall the other day, and suddenly I came across this entire page of reporting on China–Chinese reporters, posy photos of world leaders at a monetary forum, general headlines with promising development–it just felt like I was reading Chinese newspaper all over again. Just as I was wondering why New York Times changes its tone about China, I realized that the whole page was an advertisement of China Daily, an English newspaper of China.
When I was in China, learning English, China Daily used to be one of my sources for news, until when I started studying in the U.S. and reading newspapers abroad, I began to realize China Daily is just another Chinese newspaper, well yeah, in English format. From what I understand, China Daily is more like a tool–a tool to teach foreigners some basics about China, for example, the website has introductions on the structure of the Chinese government; also and more importantly, to give foreigners the Chinese-style news.
China Daily U.S. edition was launched in 2009. Its lack of in-depth reporting indicates the young age of this newspaper quite often. Many of the stories on its website carries big headlines, but whenever I open this articles, they turned out to be just a couple of paragraphs, and many times, no analyze or quotes at all. This shouldn’t be what a mainstream newspaper do when it comes to reporting.
Despite all these, I somehow want to cut some slacks for it. I mean, after all, it’s new in the game, and China Daily is still recruiting better analytical writers of better grasp of English. Some good articles are already appearing, although many of them still may read odd and a little Chinglish-like.
I actually have this respect for those reporters working for China Daily. They face the pressure from the Chinese government, but they still want to tailor their stories for Western taste. So they have to find the balanced area, where they could write good in-depth stories and not getting into troubles for what they write about.
