1st Edition
Seeking Truth in International TV News China, CGTN and the BBC
This book puts CGTN (formerly CCTV-News) and the BBC’s international television news head-to-head, interrogating competing ‘truths’ in the exacting business of news reporting.
Written by a media scholar and former long-serving BBC News journalist, Seeking Truth in International TV News asks if China’s English-language television news programmes are little more than state propaganda, and if the BBC can be viewed as a universal news standard to which all other broadcasters should aspire. Over 8 years of Xi Jinping’s rule, it investigates how the international TV news channels of CGTN and the BBC reported on Chinese politics, protests in Hong Kong, disasters, China in Africa, and insurgency and its suppression in Xinjiang. The comparison reveals uneven editorial imperatives at the Chinese broadcaster and raises questions about the BBC’s professed tenets of balance and impartiality. It also illustrates how Chinese journalists commit ‘small acts of journalism’ that push the boundaries of information control.
A rigorous analysis of reportage from the two channels, this book will be relevant to scholars of global media, journalism, international relations and public diplomacy. It will also interest those in academia, the media and international affairs who want to examine the nature of news and ‘soft power’ in a comparative context.
List of Figures
List of Tables
Preface
List of Abbreviations
Glossary
1. A Battle for Global Influence
Everything Comes from Somewhere
Going Global
Contested Concepts: Soft Power
Contested Concepts: Impartiality and Balance
Contested Concepts: Propaganda
The Power of the Individual
The Ritual of International News
Chapter Overviews
2. Seeking ‘Truth’ from Facts
A Tale of Two News Channels
CCTV in English 1986-2010
CCTV-News 2010-2016
CGTN in English 2017–
BBC World Service Television News 1991-1995
BBC World and BBC World News 1995–
Into Africa, the Americas and Europe
Fractured Worlds
Comparing the News
Categorising the Reporting
Precisions and Limitations
3. Telling China’s Story Well
Getting the Story Straight
Two Caged Tigers: The Bo and Zhou Trials
China and its Place in the World
Lunar New Year
The ‘Two Sessions’ Political Meetings
Covering (the Rest of) China
Whose China Story?
4. Responding to Disaster
The Bearers of Bad News
The 2015 Yangtze Capsize
The 2019 Jiangsu Explosion
Yangtze to Jiangsu: What Changed?
5. Covering Political Unrest
One Region, Two Narratives
The 2014 Hong Kong ‘Umbrella’ Protests
The 2019 Hong Kong Extradition Bill Crisis
CGTN’s New Voice
Media Wars
‘Small Acts of Journalism’?
Strengthening Frames
6. Redefining African News
China’s News for Africa: Experiment or Expedient?
Changing Africa’s Media Image
Comparisons in Figures
Comparisons in Framing
China in Africa
Which Journalism, and for Whom?
The African Exception
7. Islam, ‘Terror’ and National Identity
Enemies Without and Within
Two Stories of Xinjiang, 2018-2021
Seeking Facts: The 2014 Attacks
Defining Terrorism
2015: The Case of Charlie Hebdo
Manufacturing Context
8. A Trojan Dragon and its Achilles Heel
The Battle for Discourse Power
Seeking Answers: News Content
Seeking Answers: Power and Partiality
Sharp Power, Blunt Weapon
The Achilles Heel
The Imperilled Centenarian
The Casualty of Truths
Never Again ‘News From Nowhere’
Appendices
Index
Biography
Vivien Marsh, an independent academic researcher and journalist who teaches at the University of Westminster, UK, is a former BBC global news editor, reporter and writer.
