New CCTV Chief: Journalists are “Propaganda Workers”

“Some CCTV news workers have not categorized themselves as the Party’s propaganda workers, instead they categorize themselves as professional journalists, this is a fundamental error.”

These are the words of newly appointed Central China Television Director Hu Zhanfan. Hu took up his position two weeks ago. Since then Chinese Web users have spread comments Hu made about state-run CCTV earlier this year over 10-thousand times on China’s microblogs.

“Some people think that emphasizing the nature of the Party and (CCTV’s) function as its mouthpiece will influence the objectivity of the news reports and how we accord to the rules of journalism in handling matters… this is a big mistake and is very one-sided.”

The comments were made at an event hosted by the China National Media Association in May and published in an article by the state-run Xinhua News Agency. However it was only after Hu became the director of CCTV that web users started seeing the remarks as significant.

One blogger writes: “This clearly tells the public: CCTV doesn’t do news, it does propaganda.”

Another had some advice for China’s Press and Publication Administration: “They should take back CCTV reporters’ press IDs and issue them with propaganda worker IDs.”

Former China News Service reporter Gao Yu told NTD Hu was picked for his willingness to cooperate with the regime.

[Gao Yu, Former China News Service Reporter]:
“The Central Propaganda Department instructs the heads of the various departments to do things this way, and it requires them to do things this way. Its requirements for selecting people are: who can serve us as an obedient tool? Who will say ‘our media serves the part?’ They will choose those kinds of people.”

The Chinese regime is currently embarking on a ‘soft-power’ drive with a $7.1-billion dollar fund for the development of state-run media. CCTV plans to open studios in North America and Africa and recently erected a large neon sign in Times Square in New York.