Chinese Editor Focuses on Role of the Media In Discussions about China and an Open Society

Lian Qingchuan, editor of 21st Century World Herald in Guangzhou, China, talked in early August about the impact of economic changes on the Chinese media and the influence of the press on public opinion and foreign policy in a one-day visit with faculty of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.

Lian said readers in China have developed a growing interest in business journalism. "My newspaper has a 200,000 circulation," he said. "Though it is a general interest paper, we have increased the number of business stories as a response to our readers' demand."

Mr. Lian and Dr. Tudor Vlad in front of the Student Learning Center.

Lian started his career in journalism in 1999 as international editor at Southern Weekend, one of China's most highly regarded publications. In early 2001, he left Southern Weekend with a small number of former colleagues and helped to launch another weekly, the 21st Century Business Herald. As international editor at 21st Century Business Herald he helped sign a ground-breaking deal with the Los Angeles Times syndicate which allowed his paper to run columns from the Times and The Washington Post.

The Chinese editor's trip to the University of Georgia was organized by the James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research, a unit of the Grady College. He was hosted in the Center by Assistant Director Dr. Tudor Vlad, who described the center's international programs and the main characteristics of journalism education in the United States. He also presented the findings of the 2002 Annual Surveys of Journalism & Mass Communications, which had been released only days earlier at a meeting in Kansas City, MO.

Dr. Vlad told Lian that the usual pattern for a journalism and mass communication graduate is to start working in a small media organization and to move up after gaining some professional experience.

With Dr. Kent Middleton, head of the Department of Journalism, Lian discussed the 21st Century Business Herald, the business magazine to which he is a contributing editor. The two compared Chinese and American financial and business journalism. Dr. Middleton also described the journalism program at the University of Georgia in the context of American journalism education. "There are similarities between some journalism programs in our countries," said Lian after the discussions, "but I think Chinese journalism education is more theoretical than American education."

Lian also met Dr. Ann Hollifield, coordinator of the Michale J. Faherty Broadcast Management Laboratory in the Grady College. The main topic of their discussion was the changing economic and policy environment for U.S. media and the resulting emerging business strategies.

"Policy and, to some degree, economics, are shaped by a culture's normative expectations for media, and those vary from culture to culture," said Dr. Hollifield.

After touring the Grady College facilities and the UGA campus, Lian observed the editors' afternoon budget meeting at the Athens Banner-Herald and discussed with editors the structure of the newsroom and the news philosophy of the newspaper.

Lian's visit to Georgia was part of a month-long visit to the U.S. under the auspices of the U.S. State Department's International Visitor Program. He was accompanied by State Department Officer Emily Kalogeropoulos. In addition to his visit to Athens, he visited Washington, D.C., New York City, Cincinnati, and Atlanta.