Chinese Media Exercises Active Supervision Function: OfficialChinese Media exercises active supervision function in addition to its role in publicity and dissemination, a senior Chinese TV officer told the opening session of the News Forum Asia Wednesday.Delivering a speech to some more than 300 participants under the topic "East meets West", Luo Ming, vice president of China Central Television (CCTV), said that the western media asserted the Chinese media has no supervision function and this assertion is a misunderstanding. In fact, the Chinese government attaches great importance to the role played by media in supervising government bodies and officials, he said, emphasizing that Chinese leaders strongly advocate and encourage active media supervision over various government bodies and officials and put such supervision on equal footing with the supervision from the masses and from within the party. Taking the CCTV program "Focus" as an example, he said the " Focus" program aired at the prime time in the evening, exposed quite a number of social problems covering various aspects and involving government organs and officials at different levels. These problems ranged from abuse of power, neglect of responsibility, corruption in administrative affairs and so on committed by government departments or officials, he added. Luo said that Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji praised the "Focus" program and invited media to supervise himself while making an inspection of the CCTV. Noting that there do exist major differences in the understanding of the functions of media, Luo defined the functions of the Chinese media as publicity, dissemination as well as supervisions and stressed that Chinese media should be the mouthpiece of the government and the people. "It has been our basic obligation to reflect the interest of the government and the people and put into effect the will of the government and the people," he concluded. The Asian News Forum, organized by the News World, is the first annual gathering of the international broadcast and convergent news industry in Asia. The first session under the title "East meets West" was designed to explore the difference in journalistic cultures between East and West and ways to overcome the stereotypes |
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