Television news practice

Author: Fu Junqing
Editor-in-Chief: Ye Guigang
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2004-01-01
Features: Excerpt: Chapter The Charm of Media In the era when humanity is about to enter the 21st century, looking back, many historians of science have regarded television as one of the most significant inventions of the century. Although there is still debate over what television truly is, it is undeniable that television is playing an increasingly significant role in the process of social development. Among the various mass media, television, this latecomer, not only has opened up new channels for human information dissemination but has also changed or is changing traditional human lifestyles. In 1966, Canadian communication scholar Marshall McLuhan first proposed the famous argument in his book "Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man" that "the emergence of television has given birth to the global village." Three years later, a grand achievement in human exploration of space confirmed McLuhan's argument. According to records, at that time, 520.8 million people of different nationalities, ages, and skin colors, sitting in their homes, enthusiastically watched the live broadcast of Apollo 11's moon landing by the American CBS Broadcasting Company, calling this broadcast "a glorious page in the history of television." On July 21, 1969, hundreds of millions of viewers saw from the screen as astronaut Neil Armstrong opened the hatch of the lunar module and stepped onto the moon's surface. The first thing that caught the audience's eyes was his moving legs, followed by another astronaut, Edwin Aldrin. When Armstrong stepped off the last rung of the lunar module's ladder, he pointed to his left foot, which was about to land on the powdery surface of the moon, and said, "For a man, it's a small step, but for mankind, it's a giant leap." This was indeed a highly philosophical prophecy. The Apollo moon landing was not only a milestone in human exploration of outer space but also the beginning of the era of shared information. The joy of hundreds of millions of strangers sharing the happiness of Neil Armstrong leaving the first human footprint on the moon completely declared the end of the era of "small countries with few people, where the sound of chickens and dogs can be heard, but the old and the young never meet." Although China was in a special historical period at that time and, coupled with the scarcity of viewing tools, few people could witness this grand event, today as we open our doors and look at the world, we are still moved by the brilliance of television back then. With the passage of time and after 38 years of arduous efforts, especially the rapid development since the reform and opening-up, China's television industry has flourished and has already begun competing with the world's leading television powers. According to incomplete statistics, China currently has over 2,000 television stations and cable television stations that have been officially approved by the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television, with about 300 million television sets in social possession, and a hybrid population coverage rate of 83.3%. "The swallows of the former nobles' courtyards have flown into the ordinary people's homes," television, especially television news, has become the main channel for the public to obtain various types of information. Li Dongsheng, Deputy Director of China Central Television, introduced at the 1996 National Television News Conference that China Central Television's excellent program "News Broadcast" has maintained a viewership rate of around 40% for a long time, meaning that 300 million people watch this news summary every day. According to a large-scale survey, 25% of radio listeners are fixed, 19% of newspaper readers are fixed, and television news has become an indispensable information companion in people's lives. The "’96 'NPC' and 'CPPCC' Two Sessions Publicity Effect Survey Report" provided by the China Central Television Research and Consulting Center showed that 80.7% of the public first learned about the "Two Sessions" from television, an increase of 24.2 percentage points compared to the 1995 survey; 11.9% obtained this information from newspapers, 5.6% from radio, and 1.7% from other channels. 82.3% of the surveyed audience frequently watched "Two Sessions" reports on television, while 50.6% of the surveyed readers frequently read "Two Sessions" news in newspapers, and 23.2% of the surveyed listeners frequently listened to "Two Sessions" reports on radio.