The Los Angeles Times profiles Edwin Maher, an Australian reporter now reading the news on CCTV:
Maher is the first non-Chinese news anchor for state television’s English-language station, CCTV International. He speaks almost no Mandarin, but that’s of little concern to his bosses.
He was hired in 2003 as the station introduced a Western face to shake its image as a stodgy government mouthpiece, famous among foreigners for its wooden presentations and sometimes-tortured English. Maher anchors the news up to four times a day for millions of viewers worldwide, including the U.S. Critics say Maher isn’t a reporter at all, but a shameless government yes-man who gives all Western journalists a bad name. Maher answers bluntly: He says he simply doesn’t care. [Full text]
[Image: Edwin Maher, via the LA Times]
