China Daily Scoops All Competition

For nearly three decades China Daily has been bringing us all the hard-hitting good news from the People’s Republic. Yesterday was surely the paper’s crowning moment when it scooped all other local publications with stunning revelations about its own redesign, in a penetrating report: “A stunning makeover for China Daily.”

The article states: “A year in the making, the redesigned China Daily made its debut on March 1 - the biggest revamp in its 29-year history. The new China Daily has a cosmopolitan and sophisticated look to go with its rich content and its unique status as the country’s national English-language newspaper. In terms of layout, the makeover is full-blown, including a new masthead. Using state-of-the-art design principles, it incorporates photographs, graphics, cartoons and other visual elements in a unified style that represents the cutting edge of the newspaper industry.”

Photographs? Graphics? Cartoons? In a newspaper? Sounds truly cutting-edge.

In a sign China Daily is feeling the heat from tabloid upstart The Global Times, the paper’s “Metro Beijing” section, featuring local news and entertainment, will be expanded from four pages to eight. Metro Beijing was introduced last September as an imaginatively-titled riposte to Global Times' local entertainment supplement, also entitled “Metro Beijing.”

The China Daily report claims, “This model will eventually be replicated in Shanghai and Guangdong, providing more localized content for each metropolitan market.”

At present no-one knows what the other local supplements will be called, but rumor has it they will probably replicate Beijing’s cutting-edge formula with titles like “Metro Shanghai” and “Metro Guangdong.”

As if to irrefutably cement China Daily’s position as China’s leading source of completely independent English-language news, the article helpfully quotes editor-in-chief Zhu Ling pointing out that the makeover comes just in time for the “Two Sessions” of the “NPC [National People’s Congress] and CPPCC [Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference].”

Here’s to the next 29 years!