|
Front Page of the Day
Shenyang Evening News makes news in the Shenyang Evening NewsPosted by Eric Mu on Tuesday, August 5, 2008 at 4:05 PM
 Shenyang Evening News August 5, 2008 Almost all of today's newspapers reported on the terrorist attack that occurred Xinjiang yesterday, but since newspapers are not allowed to do their own reporting of this sort of sensitive subject, each paper printed the same Xinhua report. Thus the entirety of the newspapers coverage of the attack was the following two sentence news bulletin: "On August 4, around eight o'clock AM, when the border police in Kashi, Xinjiang Autonomous Region were jogging during their morning drill, they were attacked by two suspects dring a vehicle who also detonated explosives. The attack caused 16 deaths and 16 injuries and the two suspects were arrested." Nonetheless, the media's enthusiasm for the Olympic Games, now only three-day-away, is only increasing. In fact, one newspaper was so enthusiastic, it actually created it's own Olympic-related news to report on. Today the Shenyang Evening News, a local newspaper in Shenyang the capital city of Liaoning and a Olympic co-host city, ran a big headline on the front page: "China will organize the Olympic Games with the greatest enthusiasm". Underneath the headline they printed a photo of the famous Brazilian football player Ronaldo de Assis Moreir, commonly known as 'Ronaldinho', holding a Chinese calligraphy scroll. The scroll was a present from the newspaper to the footballer and it featured the character "将", meaning, roughly, 'warrior'. The coach of the Brazilian Men's Olympic football team, Carlos Caetano Bledorn Verri or 'Dunga', also received a scroll from the newspaper with another character "帅", which means commander. The Brazilian football team arrived in the city three days ago. Along with the photo, the newspaper ran a four-page-long article covering the ceremony they themselves organized to present these scrolls to the athletes. The article begins: This moment belongs to China; this moment belongs to Shenyang; this moment belongs to Shenyang Evening News! At 11:50, on August 4, when Brazilian super-star Ronaldinho and his coach Dunga received the presents from our newspaper- scrolls with "将", "帅" respectively, the Brazilian Global TV Channel broadcast the moment live to the whole world. At that moment, the glamor of the Brazilian sports star and Chinese calligraphy became the center of the world for the fans... |
Partner Links
Jobs in China
Recent Comments
Henry on
The Eurasian Face
Caroline W on
Big in China
Michael on
Julia Lovell on translating Lu Xun's complete fiction: "His is an angry, searing vision of China"
Brandon K. on
Clueless academic takes on popular fantasy novels
Media Partners
Visit these sites for the latest China news
China Media Timeline
Major media events over the last three decades
Danwei Model Workers
The latest recommended blogs and new media
 From 2008
Books on China
 The Eurasian Face : Blacksmith Books, a publishing house in Hong Kong, is behind The Eurasian Face, a collection of photographs by Kirsteen Zimmern. Below is an excerpt from the series:
Big in China: An adapted excerpt from Big In China: My Unlikely Adventures Raising A Family, Playing The Blues and Becoming A Star in China, just published this month. Author Alan Paul tells the story of arriving in Beijing as a trailing spouse, starting a blues band, raising kids and trying to make sense of China.
Pallavi Aiyar's Chinese Whiskers: Pallavi Aiyar's first novel, Chinese Whiskers, a modern fable set in contemporary Beijing, will be published in January 2011. Aiyar currently lives in Brussels where she writes about Europe for the Business Standard. Below she gives permissions for an excerpt.
Front Page of the Day
A different newspaper every weekday
From the Vault
Classic Danwei posts
+ Korean history doesn't fly on Chinese TV screens (2007.09): SARFT puts the kibbosh on Korean historical dramas. + Religion and government in an uneasy mix (2008.03): Phoenix Weekly (凤凰周刊) article from October, 2007, on government influence on religious practice in Tibet. + David Moser on Mao impersonators (2004.10): I first became aware of this phenomenon in 1992 when I turned on a Beijing TV variety show and was jolted by the sight of "Mao Zedong" and "Zhou Enlai" playing a game of ping pong. They both gave short, rousing speeches, and then were reverently interviewed by the emcee, who thanked them profusely for taking time off from their governmental duties to appear on the show.
Danwei Archives
Danwei Feeds
Via Feedsky
 (on the mainland)or Feedburner  (blocked in China) Main feed: Main posts (FB has top links) Top Links: Links from the top bar Danwei Jobs: Want ads Danwei Digest: Updated daily, 19:30 |
 |
Chinese media, advertising, and urban life. |
|
tweet
facebook
bookmark
HaoHao
digg
Comments on Shenyang Evening News makes news in the Shenyang Evening News
Another CNN perspective on China
http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2008/08/04/zakaria.week.in.history.8.4.08.cnn
At least this time it is more friendly.... Why people in the world not get it that Chinese are happy with their country.... Even chinese citizen happier compare to American citizen with their own country
Steve,
China coverage has been overly negative because there are indeed many problems in China but also because people of the "free world" want to feel good about themselves. Living in a fast changing and uncertain world, people want the media to comfort them by telling them that other countries are bad and they are living in a better land. Media coverage is endogenous to what readers want to read/hear. It takes a great journalist to break away from this pattern, not the legions of mideocre reporters.
As to the killings in Xinjiang, maybe the heavy security in Beijing this time is necessary after all and criticism should take an at least short break now (China's restrictions on the coverage on the attack does not help in getting the message across though). But I also think the security measure should be more subtle than it is now. China's learning curve is long.
Actually, both 将 and 帅 should be more accurately translated as "general" or "commander" as I assume was the intent on the part of the newspaper. These two characters are most commonly seen in Chinese chess as the king of the respective sides.