People’s Daily

Friday July 4^th      

            Our first stop of the day was to see the website department of the People’s Daily publication, which has been operating since 1997. It was a very modern looking building and when we entered there was a screen on the wall that said ‘Welcome to us’ written in characters. They first took us into a hall lined with pictures. On the left side were important Chinese dignitaries that had visited and to the right were important international economists, politicians and athletes. All were pictures of people that had visited the People’s Daily website office and had interviews.

Their main bragging point was the interaction they have with netizens- Chinese citizens on the Internet. National and International dignitaries visit the office and have open forums with netizens.  Sometimes the interview is taped and posted on the Internet, other times netizens can send questions or comments in instant messages and talk with the guest speaker. Many speakers, especially government officials, like getting to talk with the netizens and hearing what they have to say. The People’s Daily is the only newspaper that invites the president, who had said People’s Daily is his favorite media, to communicate with netizens.

Besides the forum, www.people.com.cn has all 20 newspapers and magazines published by People’s Daily where articles can be easily accessed for free. Viewers are also able to post comments about news articles and there is a special forum where they can send in their own news as well. People’s Daily has changed dramatically in the past 11 years and focuses on journalism and information. They currently have 724 news platforms and 80 different sections, reporting news 24/7. On average, they have 9,000 posts a day, receiving 13 million viewers. They have kept up with the times by being on the cutting edge of convergence technology using audio, forums, animation, and broadcast. As well as combining mediums, People’s Daily website is also innovative in spreading information whether by internet cell phones, text messages, videos, podcasts, blogs and of course, print stories. The news is available in seven languages: Chinese, English, Italian, Russian, French, Arabic, and Japanese. Other than Chinese, English is the most viewed language.

The recent earthquake was a great test on the People’s Daily and their news reporting abilities. To date the website has had over 600,000 stories, including 30,000 pictures and 2,000 videos with audio. More than 60 million people have viewed the coverage in some form with more than one million posting comments and about 500,000 posts in the public forum. In preparation for the Olympic Games the website has a staff of 100 reporters.

Afterwards we were given a chance to ask questions that ranged anywhere from how Chinese journalist are viewed by society as a whole to what kind of international traffic the website experiences to where employees come from.