Inside popular news site chinadaily.com
Kristina Koveshnikova, a graduate journalist, travelled to Beijing on a three-month internship at China Daily website as part of an Asia:NZ-supported Auckland University of Technology exchange. Here is an edited version of her report – her full report, a ‘survival kit’ for interns in China can be read here.
The China Daily.com website was re-launched in 2006 and has radically expanded since. Although the hard news is picked up from the newspaper edition, the website - despite having no trained journalists – also produces news stories. Most of the Chinese staff at China Daily.com, who write and translate stories from Chinese, are English language graduates and have little understanding of how to write a news story. As the website’s intern, my main duties were assisting the three full time English copy editors.
Daily routine consisted mainly of editing, often having to completely rewrite - but first make sense of – poorly translated pieces, which could be either very amusing or frustrating. Duties also included writing photo captions, headlines as well as working with the English language tips, multimedia and marketing and sales departments.
The website’s newsroom is normally deathly quiet. It was very rare to hear someone speak on the phone and almost never in person. The website’s staff used MSN Messenger for communication even if they sat right next to each other.
Fresh foreign expats would naturally tap a person they share a desk with on the shoulder to ask a question. But at the website’s newsroom, this usually would only happen once. The Chinese staff would jump up in their chair before slowly turning around looking at the ‘intruder of their immediate space’ with eyes full of horror and disbelief. Foreign expats, who are also called ‘foreign experts’ or ‘polishers’, getting the message fast and clear, would then back up, fall back in their chair and continue the conversation on Messenger filled with smiley faces.
If an online misunderstanding or confrontation arose, from my experience, the Chinese never showed a negative emotion when they happened to bump into you in the office later, nor is it in their culture to meet face-to-face to sort things out. As one foreign expert explained to me “the Chinese don’t like face-to-face confrontation” and it is due to “the fear of losing face”. Online they appear to be different personas: on Messenger they don’t have a problem telling you why they disagree, but in person they would never argue and always politely smile at you.
Another interesting aspect of a Chinese newsroom I learned was the dress code. Although I was told the rules did not apply to foreign experts, I chose to respect the so-called office customs. Women were not allowed to show shoulders. A shorter skirt or shorts seemed to be acceptable, but open shoulders would noticeably raise co-workers’ eyebrows. Make-up also had to be kept to a minimum. I was told by female colleagues that these two ‘rules’ were actually included in the written office rules of what not to wear and how to behave at work. For breaching the rules one could be fired or given a warning.
As for the workmates themselves, although they appeared reserved and unfriendly at first, I found on making an effort that they are very warm and generous people. I found it easy to make friends.
Although most days I was mainly doing copy editing, I was fortunate to also closely work with the multimedia department throughout my internship picking up a few interesting projects. I hosted China Daily weekly video news and interviewed a few well-known individuals.
My very first live on-camera interview was with David Brooks, vice president of Coca-Cola greater China. My ambitious research, which I began as soon as I was told about the interview, was soon interrupted by a colleague who told me he had questions written down for me. In reply to my puzzled stare he said “You can add your questions if you like as long as they are not controversial and as long as you finish the question list by this afternoon so we can send it to Coca-Cola’s PR team for approval”. I was then told Coca-Cola was one of the website’s biggest sponsors. The question list was “approved” and came back altered with many questions – almost all questions I added – cut out. I was told I had to stick with the final copy of the questions’ list, which I (almost) did.
Coca-Cola’s plan to acquire China Huiyuan Juice Group – the largest privately-owned juice producer in China – failed in March 2009. The Ministry of Commerce rejected Coca-Cola’s 2.3 billion U.S. dollar bid for the leading juice maker due to the country’s anti-monopoly law – which would have been the biggest foreign acquisition of a Chinese company to date. While there was speculation that Coca-Cola was looking at a minority stake approach, nothing was on the record. After Brooks declined to comment about the company’s future plans regarding China Huiyuan Juice Group during the interview, we moved on to talking about Coca-Cola’s on-going involvement in the Sichuan earthquake disaster appeal including the company’s numerous donations (which I was told to concentrate on). No one ever said anything about my questions which were not on the list.
My second interview was with an extraordinary woman - Sarah Storey - a Para-Olympian swimming and cycling champion. Storey, who started her career as a swimmer and shifted to cycling three years ago, won 36 gold medals breaking 67 world records.
In 2008 Storey – who was awarded the MBE in the 1998 New Years Honours List - became Great Britain’s first Para-Olympian to win the title at a senior able-bodied National Championship event. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting and talking with Sarah and I was given complete freedom with the interview.
Read more:
Read Kristina's China intern 'survival kit' in out Covering Asia section.
