How the Market Is Changing China's News by Xin Xin;

Author:Xin, Xin;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Structural Change at the Local Level

5

Chapter 4 discussed Xinhua’s operations at the national or central level. This chapter investigates the agency’s structural change at the local level. Here the “local” is seen as the level below the “national,” as defined earlier. Under China’s layered administrative bureaucracy, controlled by the central government, the “local” can apply to provincial, municipal and county establishments.[1] They are affiliated with the local authorities and are responsible for protecting local interests, which are sometimes in conflict with national interests.[2]

Xinhua has thirty-one domestic local branches spread across the country, covering all capitals of provinces and autonomous regions, and municipalities, including Beijing and Shanghai. There are also sub-divisions affiliated with provincial bureaus. Local provincial bureaus function as representatives of Xinhua’s headquarters. The implications of this are twofold: Firstly, local bureaus have the same political status as that of headquarters. Ever since Xinhua became a centralized national news agency in the 1950s, all local bureaus, including the Shanghai bureau, have been detached from the direct administration of local governments. Now all Xinhua local bureaus represent the central government’s interests. They also function as central media institutions at the local level. According to the directive of the Central Committee of the Party released in the 1950s, local bureaus were expected to be financed by, cooperate with and supervise local governments.[3] Moreover, local bureaus function as mediators between central and local governments, helping the central government keep its authoritarian control over local power structures. Secondly, all local bureaus are under Xinhua headquarters’ direct editorial and personnel control.

This chapter examines how Xinhua’s local bureaus responded to the changes in financial, managerial and editorial policy which have taken place at the agency’s headquarters over the past thirty years, especially during the period of 1980-2006. It also shows how, in turn, the responses of local bureaus led to further changes at Xinhua headquarters. The relationship between headquarters and local bureaus is the main focus of this chapter. In addition, this chapter assesses the impact that revenue-generating activities and the change in the relationship with headquarters had upon the journalistic practices of local bureaus over the period. This main body of analysis is based on the case of the Shanghai bureau, which became one of the first financially self-sufficient divisions of the agency in the late 1990s.

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