Does a New Look Mean a New Form of Journalism?

The Wall Street Journal reports that after decades, the People's Daily English version has a new format intended to create a "cosmopolitan and sophisticated look."  The paper's new image is part of a larger effort to push Chinese media onto the international stage as a credible news source and source of insight into Chinese society. 

For many in the west, this is a laughable effort.  Chinese official media sources are often seen as tools of propaganda, or simply as the voice of the Party.  This opinion is not baseless, but I would challenge one to take a more nuanced look at information access in China.  Although the official statements supporting internet controls state that they are in place to guard against the western monopoly of electronic information, the truth is English language material is viewed as much less controversial than Chinese language material (see also the AmCham China interview with Jeremy Goldkorn from Danwei.org).  For example, the English versions of sites such as the BBC are open while the Chinese language versions are not.  Thus there is reason to believe that something like the People's Daily English version intended for an international audience would be, at the least, quite different than its domestic counterpart. 

One reason to believe this comes from another WSJ article that points out an interesting article from the Global Times (published by the People's Daily) discussing the situation concerning online censorship.  For such a sensitive and contentious topic for officials here, this is a surprisingly candid piece of journalism from an official news source. The piece openly discusses some of the common perceptions of information controls: the absence of clear rules, the arbitrary closing of sites/deletion of information, the prevalence of self-censorship, and a lack of a body through which to appeal decisions. 

Of course, this is not to say that Chinese official media sources will become reputable sources of independent and unbiased news.  After all, even though English content is slightly less scrutinized, national media bodies are still nationally controlled; this article could just be an anomaly.  However, given the efforts to change and update Chinese official media sources, it is certain that we will be seeing a very different People's Daily soon.