A commentary of People's Daily Online has criticized boastful and arrogant writing in news coverage.

According to the article, a worrying phenomenon has been observed on the internet lately. Articles with titles such as "The U.S. is frightened", "Japan is shocked" and "Europe has regretted" get a lot of hits from readers.

Some of these articles feature exaggerations or overgeneraliszations; for example, some claim that China is "world No.1" in certain fields. Some willfully accept reports by foreign media, amplifying reports with quotes such as "China is standing at the centre of the world stage" and "China is the world's number one economy".

These articles have some common features: they lack basic facts and deep thought. The articles are not more persuasive due to bragging, and they don’t help make the country a stronger one either, the commentary says, adding that the instigation of extreme sentiments and spread of prejudice could make the public arrogant.

The boastful style of writing has deviated from the correct way of news production, although it catches the readers’ attention. Statistics show that the number of people operating new media exceeded three million last year, with investment in content creation exceeding five billion yuan. In this context, self-media should exercise self-discipline. If they keep on creating hype and taking advantage of hot events, they will harm the credibility of media sources, the commentary adds.

In an all media era, objectiveness and rationality still remain the standard of good news, and media should write in a plain and pragmatic style, the commentary concludes, urging the self-media, which is fond of creating hype, to put an end to such practices.