{"id":45489,"date":"2020-02-24T23:14:44","date_gmt":"2020-02-24T22:14:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chinamediaproject.org\/?p=45489"},"modified":"2021-05-08T09:37:01","modified_gmt":"2021-05-08T07:37:01","slug":"what-ails-the-peoples-daily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinamediaproject.org\/2020\/02\/24\/what-ails-the-peoples-daily\/","title":{"rendered":"What Ails the People’s Daily?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

No one\nwho knows the People\u2019s\nDaily<\/em>, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese\nCommunist Party, would turn through its pages expecting to find exclusive reporting\non breaking stories, or to find incisive analysis. As the flag bearer of the\ntop leadership, the paper points the way for all official media in following\nthe Party line and achieving so-called \u201cpublic opinion guidance.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past\ntwo months, however, as China has faced a health crisis of immense proportions,\nand as debate has raged over the role suppression of information played in the\nearly stages of the coronavirus outbreak, the People\u2019s Daily<\/em> has managed\nastonishing feats of tone deafness, focusing on content so remote from public\nconcerns that the result is a kind of dissonance that can only impact\nnegatively on the Party\u2019s image. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m talking\nspecifically of the paper\u2019s insistence on giving repeated prominence, even over\nmajor developments in the epidemic, to a special propaganda series called \u201cThe General\nSecretary Came to My Home\u201d (\u603b\u4e66\u8bb0\u6765\u8fc7\u6211\u7684\u5bb6). This\nseries, with its feel-good reminiscences aggrandizing Xi Jinping as a man of\nthe people, stands as a historical record of propaganda ugliness that cannot be\nwhitewashed away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us begin by backing up just a bit. We should remember\nthat during the first 20 days of January, as the outbreak quietly raged, the People\u2019s\nDaily<\/em> reported not a single word about the crisis (which leaders had not yet\nproperly recognized as such). It was only after Xi Jinping delivered his \u201cimportant\ndirections\u201d (\u91cd\u8981\u6307\u793a) concerning\nthe epidemic on January 20 that coverage finally appeared on the front page of the\nnext day\u2019s edition. You can see an image of that page below. Look carefully at\nhow the newspaper has visualized the Party\u2019s priorities.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\u56fe\u7247\u5305\u542b<\/div><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The news of Xi\u2019s instructions on the epidemic appear on\nthe right-hand side, next to the masthead, in the small space we refer to as\nthe \u201cnewspaper eye,\u201d or baoyan <\/em>(\u62a5\u773c). But the news that gets the greatest emphasis, with\na larger headline and a prominent image, is below the masthead, about Xi\nJinping meeting with People\u2019s Liberation Army soldiers during an inspection\ntour. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One might expect this sort of downplaying and sidelining\nof the epidemic to fade as the full seriousness sinks in for the Party\nleadership. But this is not in fact what happened.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From January 22\nto January 25, for four straight days, the People\u2019s Daily<\/em> again had no\nfront pages dealing with the epidemic. It was only on January 26, with the news\nthat the Politburo Standing Committee had held a meeting on the epidemic, that related\nnews took the most prominent position in the newspaper. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\u56fe\u7247\u5305\u542b<\/div><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

At this point, we might expect news and announcements\non the epidemic to remain in primary position. After all, there was no doubt\nwhatsoever by January 26 that the coronavirus was the most urgent and important\nmatter for the country, that it would take long and concerted effort to deal\nwith, and that it was the focus of public concern. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Generally speaking, when we the announcement of a\nmajor Party meeting on a crucial matter of policy or emergency, as we have in\nthe front page above, we can anticipate the next day\u2019s front page in the People\u2019s\nDaily<\/em>. One a central command (\u4e2d\u592e\u53f7\u4ee4) has been\nissued by the Party leadership, it should lead in all official media, taking\nprecedence over all other stories. In the People\u2019s Daily<\/em>, that would mean\nplacement under the masthead, with a bold headline. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But is this what happened on January 27, the day after\nthe meeting? No, in fact. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is the January 27 edition of the People\u2019s\nDaily<\/em>, on which news of the Politburo meeting and other news related to the\nepidemic appears on the right-hand side, again in the \u201ceye\u201d and the space\nbelow, with slightly smaller headlines than the main story. The main story, as\nthe reader may guess, was something entirely unrelated \u2013 the pre-planned special\nseries, \u201cThe General Secretary Came to My Home.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\u56fe\u7247\u5305\u542b<\/div><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

By this point,\nthe special series was nothing new. It had been running through January as the\nepidemic quietly raged in Wuhan. The first article in this series actually appeared\non January 5, and there were five front pages dominated by the series up to\nJanuary 20, the day that marked a key turning point in the epidemic with Xi\nJinping\u2019s first major statement<\/a> on China\u2019s response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From a purely design standpoint, the series is unappealing.\nEvery installment is designed in exactly the same way, with the series title\nagainst an orange banner, a bold vertical headline, and a gold-shaded box at\nthe top including an inspirational quote from Xi. The series is pushed so\ndensely and regularly it seems it can only fatigue the reader. But of course\nthe more serious problem is that the series has little newsworthiness whatsoever\n\u2013 at a time when everyone knows there is plenty to report, plenty to talk about,\nplenty to decide and act upon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe General Secretary Came to My Home\u201d is a retrospective\nseries in which journalists look back on Xi Jinping\u2019s visits with ordinary\nChinese in their homes since coming to office at the end of 2012, the most recent\nvisit dating to September 2019. The \u201cretrospective,\u201d or huifang<\/em> (\u56de\u8bbf), means going back and digging out old news coverage\nby the paper, so in this case the focus is on digging out the instances where\nXi visited various homes, and then highlighting the aspects of this dealing\nwith key propaganda points \u2013 particularly the theme of prosperity and the\nrealization of \u201cmoderately wealthy lifestyles.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is this really\nnews? If we allow that it is news, is this really news that people should be\nfocusing on? Or, brushing aside these questions and looking just at the CCP members\nlikely to pick up copies of the People\u2019s Daily, <\/em>we might ask: Is this the\nnews that the 90 million members of the CCP most care about at this moment? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we look at the\npriorities of China\u2019s leaders over past weeks, to say nothing of the crisis\nthat has engulfed all Chinese, we know that the obvious answer is that the epidemic\nis what everyone cares about. Since January, the Politburo Standing Committee\nhas held three meetings to deal with the epidemic \u2013 on January 25, February 3\nand February 12. Even if nothing else did, this would tell us all too clearly\nthat the epidemic has become a serious crisis for the leadership. And not\nsurprisingly, all three of these Politburo meetings made the front page of the People\u2019s\nDaily<\/em>. Xi Jinping\u2019s various directives on the epidemic, his speeches and\nhis inspection tours, were all given fairly prominent positions on the front\npage of the newspaper. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But through this entire period, as the whole country\nhas been engulfed by the crisis, only one story has reigned supreme above all\nothers in the People\u2019s Daily<\/em>: \u201cThe General Secretary Came to My Home.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following are the People\u2019s Daily <\/em>front\npages from January 31, February 2, February 3, February 5, February 7, February\n8, February 9, February 10, February 12, February 14, February 17 and February\n18. All are dominated by virtually identical treatment of variations of the\nsame story about home visit by Xi Jinping. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\u56fe\u7247\u5305\u542b<\/div><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s take a look at another, more recent, front page,\nfrom last Friday, February 21. Notice how this page, like all the other pages included\nabove, are structured around the same series, \u201cThe General Secretary Came to My\nHome,\u201d with identical treatment and layout on the front page of the newspaper. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\u56fe\u7247\u5305\u542b<\/div><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In the month since January 21, there have been 14 front\npages dominated by the series, nearly one front page every other day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, I would ask: Is this news? Do people care? But\nin fact, we don\u2019t even need to judge these front page choices by the standards\nof journalistic professionalism. We can judge them instead on the basis of the\nmission and responsibility of the People\u2019s Daily<\/em> as defined by the CCP itself.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This series, \u201cThe General Secretary Came to My Home,\u201d\nhas clearly been in the works for some time. Very likely, the vast majority of\nthese articles were written and prepared before the outbreak of the coronavirus.\nIn my analysis\nof Party media coverage in January<\/a>, I pointed out that 2020 has been\ndefined as the year for China\u2019s full realization of a \u201cmoderately wealthy\nsociety,\u201d or xiaokang shehui<\/em> (\u5c0f\u5eb7\u793e\u4f1a), and that\nthis is a propaganda theme that Xi Jinping meant to trumpet loudly from the start\nof the year. The series on Xi Jinping\u2019s home visits was clearly intended as a\ntribute to 2020 as the year of xiaokang<\/em> achievement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not really important whether the families profiled\nin these stories from various regions in China are really representative of the\nlives of Chinese people (and all would undoubtedly have received special treatment\nand attention from local governments in preparation). The important takeaway of\nall the reports in the series is Xi Jinping\u2019s presence, and his attentiveness\nto the needs and development of all Chinese. Careful preparation of this\nsignature 2020 series was clearly a central political task of the Party media\nfrom late 2019.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem now is context. In the light of the\npresent context, these propaganda reports appear ugly and callous.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since\nthe meeting of the Politburo took place on January 25, 2020, we have seen two very\ndifferent Xi Jinping\u2019s in the People\u2019s Daily<\/em>. The first is Xi Jinping personally\nleading the fight against the coronavirus epidemic, a crisis with a very\ntangible impact on people\u2019s well-being and prosperity. The second is Xi Jinping\nbusy harvesting the glorious results of xiaokang<\/em>, and of China\u2019s battle\nagainst poverty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since\nthe official turnabout on January 20, when Xi Jinping signaled new public\nseriousness about the crisis, and throughout February, the epidemic situation in\nChina has been extremely serious. The situation is now compounded by the economic\nimpact of delays in getting people back to work after the Spring Festival, and\nso on. There can be no doubt that the overriding political task of the People\u2019s\nDaily <\/em>is to turn up the volume on propaganda about the leadership\u2019s battle\nagainst the epidemic. We might suppose the paper would devote more headlines to\nthe coronavirus epidemic given Xi\u2019s emphasis\non this as the Party\u2019s \u201ctop task.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, let\u2019s\nlook at how the news was reported in the People\u2019s Daily<\/em> over a number of\ndays, and what the newspaper\u2019s front pages looked like. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The January 25\nmeeting of the Politburo Standing Committee decided to form a \u201ccentral-level\nsmall leading group\u201d on the response to the epidemic, and this \u201csmall leading group\u201d\nwas meant to provide unified direction of the epidemic response. On January 26,\nthe head of the group, Premier Li Keqiang, led its first meeting, which quickly\nreleased an \u201cimportant decision\u201d (\u91cd\u8981\u51b3\u7b56). Absent new\ninstruction or activities by Xi Jinping to fight the epidemic, the news of the\nmeeting led by Li Keqiang would be the undisputed choice for the top headline\non the front page. The day after the meeting, however, news of the meeting was\nplaced in the middle of the front page and to the right. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which story\ngets top billing? Well, of course: \u201cThe General Secretary Came to My Home.\u201d The\nmoral of this particular article, which of course showcases Xi\u2019s visit, is that\nsound environmental policies help to combat poverty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was not,\nhowever, a choice by the People\u2019s Daily<\/em> that we saw mirrored in other\nParty publications. The flagship newspaper was entirely unique in its choice of\nemphasis, and the situation was quite different in other Party newspapers. In\nthe image below you can see the People\u2019s Daily<\/em> on the far left, with the\nLi Keqiang story at the middle-right, followed by Xinhua Daily<\/em>, Hubei\nDaily<\/em> and Liberation Daily<\/em>. In all three of the latter cases, the Li\nKeqiang story is given precedence \u2013 not shoved aside by the home visit story.\nThe news on the front pages of all three of these newspapers is dominated by reports\nabout the coronavirus epidemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\u56fe\u7247\u5305\u542b<\/div><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

From\nthe standpoint of CCP norms, this handling of the news by the People’s Daily<\/em>\nshould be hugely inappropriate. Here we have a small leading group that is\nserving at the Central Committee\u2019s anti-epidemic command center. As head of the\nsmall leading group, Premier Li Keqiang is implementing the spirit of Xi\nJinping’s directives on the epidemic from the Politburo Standing Committee\nmeeting. How is this not the top story? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On January 30,\nLi Keqiang made an inspection tour of the Chinese Center for Disease Control\nand Prevention (CCDC), issuing instructions on a range of areas from\ninvestigating the origin of the outbreak to stepping of vaccine development and\nimproving diagnosis and treatment. The importance of these instructions goes\nwithout saying, and the People\u2019s Daily<\/em> should have an obligation to put\nthis news in the most important position. But in the next day\u2019s edition of the newspaper,\nthis story once again is placed in the middle of the right-hand side. Which\nstory gets top billing? You guessed it: \u201cThe General Secretary Came to My Home.\u201d\nThe story focuses on Xi\u2019s visit, with a subtext about agricultural reforms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On February 1,\nLi Keqiang made another important inspection tour of epidemic response facilities.\nThe news again appeared in the middle of the right-hand side. The lead story\nwas another in the home visit series, this time about a family visited by Xi\nJinping that had been relocated due to ecological reasons, but was now doing\nwell, the youngest son buying a car, and the oldest now earning a salary of\n6,000 yuan a month \u2013 solidly xiaokang<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On February 2,\nthere were two important news stories. The first was the\nopening of a new hospital in Wuhan with 1,400 military medical staff<\/a>.\nThe second was Li Keqiang\u2019s leading of another meeting of the small leading\ngroup on increasing material support for prevention and treatment. The next\nday, the People\u2019s Daily<\/em> put the first story in the \u201ceye\u201d at the upper right-hand\ncorner of the front page, and the second on the right-hand side below. The story\ngiven the most prominent treatment, however, was again about Xi Jinping and\npart of the home visits series. It was about a family that became rich after\nopening a brewery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On February 3,\nthe small leading group held its third meeting, which dealt with measures to raise\nthe level of treatments in Wuhan and lower infection rates. The story appeared\non the right-hand side the next day. The main story that day? It was called, \u201cPulling\nOut the Roots of Poverty, Achieving Rapid Development,\u201d yet another story in\nthe series on home visits by General Secretary Xi Jinping. One choice line in\nthe article said that \u201cthe general secretary has prioritized a toilet revolution,\u201d\nthis referring to a campaign to improve sanitary conditions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On February 6,\nthe small leading group issued orders on the orderly return of production and guaranteeing\nsupplies \u2013 dealing, in other words, with getting China\u2019s economy up and running.\nOnce again, this story was slotted to the side in favor of \u201cWork Hard for a\nBetter Life,\u201d a story in the home visits series on a child from the countryside\nwho had managed to attend university. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fifth\nmeeting of the small leading group was held on February 13, Li Keqiang again\npresiding. This dealt with changes to disease classification, and with other\nmeasures for the effective prevention and control of the epidemic. The classification\nissue was related to the \u201cpolicy precision\u201d requested by Xi Jinping. It was\nagain the most important CCP news of the moment. But neither this story, nor\nanother news item about the army ordering another 2,400 medical personnel to Wuhan,\ncould compete with the marquis story: \u201cThe General Secretary Came to My Home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the Spring\nFestival holiday came to an end, the key priorities remained the response to\nthe epidemic and the return of people to work. The small leading group held its\n7th<\/sup> and 8th<\/sup> meetings on February 17 and February 20. But\nthe top front-page headlines on the days following these meetings were virtual\ncopies of previous front pages. Pride of position was given on February 18 to a\nreport in the home visit series called \u201cThe Change in Our Village is Huge,\u201d and\non February 21 to a home visit report called \u201cThe Road is Open and the People\nare Flowing.\u201d This latter report, which dealt with the health of ordinary\npeople in China, quoted Xi Jinping’s statement that “basic medical\ninsurance, critical illness insurance, and medical assistance are important\nguarantees to prevent ordinary people from returning to poverty due to illness.\u201d\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One wonders, if\nthe health of the people was indeed the top priority, why was news of the epidemic\nnot given more prominent positioning? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the\nperiod I just covered, the focus in provincial and local-level Party newspapers\nwas consistently on the epidemic, the front pages dominated by central-level\npolicies and directives, local decisions and actions, and reports from local reporters.\nFrom January 27 to February 22, Beijing Daily<\/em>, the local mouthpiece of\nthe Beijing city leadership, ran 11 of its own reports on the epidemic. During\nthe same period, we can find unique reports in a number of other central-level\npublications as well: eight in China Youth Daily<\/em>; 11 in the Economic\nDaily<\/em>; 12 in Guangming Daily<\/em>. In fact, the People\u2019s Daily<\/em> sent\na rather sizable reporting team to the front lines in Wuhan. Between January 27\nand January 22, the paper ran close to a hundred reports. And yet, only one of\nthese made the newspaper\u2019s front page. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conclusion\nwe come to when reading through the pages of the CCP\u2019s official People\u2019s Daily<\/em>\nis that no news on the ongoing epidemic, whether this means the decisions of the\nleading small group, or reporting on the epidemic by the paper\u2019s own reporters\n(though much of this \u201ccoverage\u201d is of course actually propaganda lauding the actions\nof the leadership), is more important than the series of propaganda articles on\nXi Jinping\u2019s visits to people\u2019s homes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reports on Li\nKeqiang at the People\u2019s Daily<\/em> also appear to have been restrained by\nunspoken rules. After the January 25 meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee,\nLi Keqiang traveled to Wuhan, arriving there on the 26th<\/sup>. This was a\nnews story on which millions upon millions of people were focused. On January\n27, the Beijing Evening Post<\/em>, a commercial paper under Beijing Daily<\/em>,\nplaced this major news about Li Keqiang\u2019s trip in the most prominent position\non its front page, as did Hubei Daily<\/em>, the official Party mouthpiece of\nHubei province. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\u56fe\u7247\u5305\u542b<\/div><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

On the same\nday that Li Keqiang arrived in Wuhan, Xi Jinping issued another directive on\nthe epidemic. His talk of \u201cfirming up confidence, helping one another, taking a\nscientific approach to prevention and control, and applying policy precisely\u201d\nwas actually a repeating of what had already been reported in the newspapers\nafter the January 25 Standing Committee meeting. But as Xi cannot be surpassed\nin the People\u2019s Daily<\/em> headlines, the big news about the premier could\nonly take second place \u2013 and the premier\u2019s important visit in Hubei had to come\nwith mention that he was \u201centrusted by General Secretary Xi Jinping.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\u56fe\u7247\u5305\u542b<\/div><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The\narrangements we see on front pages like that on January 28 page above, such as\nthe need to emphasize Xi Jinping first among Politburo Standing Committee members,\nare not decisions that can be made at the discretion of the editor-in-chief of\nthe People\u2019s Daily<\/em> or his staff. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the\nchoices being made at the newspaper in regard to this series on the general\nsecretary visiting people\u2019s homes are incomprehensible to all \u2013 and perhaps even\nmore so to those who understand how the Party\u2019s approach to the news works. It\u2019s\ndifficult to imagine that this completely un-newsworthy series, so unsightly against\nthe backdrop of the epidemic, is something Xi Jinping himself has insisted upon.\nAfter all, for weeks now as the country has faced a major health crisis, Xi\nJinping has emphasized that \u201c[we] must make the safety and physical health of\nthe masses the top priority,\u201d and that \u201c[we] must define epidemic prevention\nand control as the most important work.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are the\neditors at the People\u2019s Daily<\/em> just not hearing it? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course we\ncan\u2019t be na\u00efve in our expectations of the People\u2019s Daily<\/em>. Xi Jinping has\nstressed that the Party media \u201cmust be surnamed Party,\u201d that they must serve\nthe Party\u2019s agenda alone. It would be unrealistic to imagine that the People\u2019s\nDaily<\/em> will simply change course and start doing investigative reporting, or\nlook back critically on the handling of the epidemic. But at the very least, at\nsuch a difficult time, couldn\u2019t the People\u2019s Daily<\/em> emphasize the\nepidemic, even if this only means shouting slogans? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For whatever\nreason, this has not been possible. \u201cThe General Secretary Came to My Home\u201d has\ndominated 14 front pages of the People\u2019s Daily<\/em> in just over a month\nsince January 25, with its tone triumphant and pleasant at turns, conveying a\nfulsome sense of happiness and gain. The tone deafness of the series is really\nquite incredible, treating Xi Jinping\u2019s every step as a miracle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do the editors\nnot understand that these choices will actually have an adverse impact on the\nimage of the CCP and the image of Xi Jinping? Are they, to a fault, true\nbelievers? Are they simply confused? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wish I knew\nthe answer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Featured Image: A scanning electron microscope image of SARS-CoV-2, also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19. Image from NIAID available at Flickr.com under CC license<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the past two months, as China has faced a health crisis of immense proportions, the Party’s flagshiip newspaper has remained tone deaf, focusing on propaganda remote from public concerns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":47631,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines-and-hashtags"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Ails the People's Daily? - China Media Project<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/chinamediaproject.org\/2020\/02\/24\/what-ails-the-peoples-daily\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Ails the People's Daily? 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