The job openings for reading the news in China are quite limited, especially when it comes to English language news programs produced by Chinese channels. Even though news is extensively covered in China, English news is reserved to either dedicated English channels (check out the ground breaking CCTV 9) or the sporadic scheduling of regional TV stations. A big hindrance is that as most if not all Chinese media is state run or heavily influenced, most TV companies cannot legally employ foreigners. Through clever legal manoeuvring, loopholes are found and native English speaking foreigners are brought in to add a touch of authenticity to the channel’s English language output.
A recent conversation with one of these newsreaders became a fascinating insight into a world seldom seen by anyone who doesn’t possess a Chinese passport. The newsreader is American and had found the job through guanxi, a system of contacts that is built up through family connections or networking. If you want to be successful in China, these contacts are essential to get jobs, promotions or complete business deals. Despite having no experience in broadcasting, through these contacts she was able to get an interview and was offered the job.
The work itself is pretty mundane, just 3 hours, one of which is spent in make up. The script arrives and the usual Chinglish grammar mistakes and badly translated words are taken out and a readable flowing version is self edited minutes before recording by the newsreader. Negative words are asked to be taken out by the Chinese staff. ‘Smog’ is substituted for ‘haze’, but bizarrely ‘acid rain’ is somehow kept in. The camera man preps the studio and the news reader is left alone to go record the news in a slow controlled manner being careful not to slouch or contort any part of her body.
The usual news story is of a visit by a government official or local economic news. Thankfully, she told me, there has not been any crisis of conscience when reading the news but any reporting of the 3T’s (I’ll let you guess what they are) is still open to bias and twisting of the truth. “But that’s how it goes in China,” she informed me, and as much as China has progressed to the eyes of the outside world in recent times it’s still the same old story for the nation’s newsreaders.
For further reading please read the blog below for an Australian writer’s slightly paranoid account of working for the China Daily newspaper, the Chinese government’s English language rag!
http://leakingstatesecrets.blogspot.com
WORDS BY WILL CROOK
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