Roland Soong of EastSouthWestNorth translates the top ten media incidents of 2009 from Southern Weekend:
1. World Media Summit showcases Chinese concepts about openness
On October 9, 2009, the World Media Summit took place in Beijing. The summit was jointly sponsored by Xinhua, News Corp, Associated Press, Reuters, Tass, Kyodo, BBC, TIME Warner and Google and organized by Xinhua. 135 media organizations from more than 70 countries and regions plus more than 40 Chinese media organization leaders were present. This was a summit meeting for the global media as well as new media. The Summit explored the current state and future trends of global media. China took the opportunity to showcase the evolutionary path of Chinese media. Chinese president Hu Jintao addressed the summit and expressed the determination of China to reform its media. He also promised to facilitate international media coverage in China.
Comment: For the Chinese people, the highlight of the summit was the showcasing of new communication ideas for China. For example, the keywords that Hu Jintao used in his speech about how the government values, encourages and supports innovation in Chinese media were: close to reality, close to life, close to the people, creative ideas, creative contents, creative forms, creative methods, creative approaches, increased friendliness, attractiveness, touching. The keywords on giving play to media functions were: bring honor to righteousness in society, conveying public opinion, leading hot social issues, assuaging public sentiments, conducting watchdog journalism, protecting the people’s rights to know, participate, express and supervise, etc. The fact that China was able to host such a conference and sit down together with the international media to discuss the issues of survival and development already shows that Chinese media are more open. The speech by the Chinese leader also raises expectations by the world for media openness in China.
