Calling it the news may be going too far. All news in China comes through a single news agency and the delivery is extremely constricted. The depth of coverage makes USA Today read like the New York Times. Perhaps it is no better in the US, but while we get very little actual news information from CCTV we do get an interesting window on what China considers to be important.
In a typical lead story, we learn that Chinese President Jiang Zemin has had a meeting in Beijing with the leader of Vanuatu, to affirm their "important strategic alliance." Can anyone reading this find Vanuatu on a map? Can George W. Bush? Partial credit for getting the hemisphere correct. The total population of Vanuatu happens to be about the same as the number of residents in a large Beijing apartment complex. This was during a week that the government of Yugoslavia was being overthrown, something we were not told until well after the fact.
In addition to having a narrow perspective, CCTV has unusual ideas about how to present images of the news. Many of the stories report on large government meetings, and the footage consists of camera pans across acres of auditorium seats sparsely filled with bored and paunchy Chinese bureaucrats. But this is exciting compared to the stories where the video coverage is limited to a camera focused on the front page of a newspaper.
The importance of a news story is signaled by what has in my mind become a CCTV signature shot. At some point in the story, the camera will be directed towards all the other cameramen covering the event. We will then watch for about 10 seconds as they focus their lenses and adjust their tripods. The message seems to be "See, this really *is* an important story, look at all the *other* people covering it!"
The variations on this shot are often the most entertaining part of the evening's news. For example, we get lots of reports out of Baghdad on the latest pronouncements from Saddam Hussein. But apparently there is a limited amount of technology in Iraq, because instead of seeing banks of cameras, we are shown two or three kerchief-headed woman scribbling notes into their stenographer's pads. The best one though, was when CCTV was conducting a telephone interview, and during the entire conversation, we watched a hand holding a microphone next to a speakerphone!
When they get some footage that they like, CCTV will use it as much as possible. Any important shot is shown at least four times during the half hour news program. First, we see it at the beginning of the show when the major stories are announced; second, it appears as a teaser when the say "coming up after the break...", third it is presented during the actual reporting of the story, and finally, we see it again in the recap of the news at the end of the program, sometimes only minutes after its last appearance. But it is not really "finally" after all, because if it was a big enough story, we will see the images again on Sunday night, when we watch The Week In Review.
And the most favored images will return like ghosts given the slightest provocation. If the words "energy prices" or "oil shortages" appear in any story, then we inevitably see a woefully familiar montage of clips that includes an oil refinery, a pipeline, a sign that says "OPEC" on the side of an generic concrete office building, and a woman in a self-serve gas station, apparently in the US, filling the tank of her car and looking at the pumps with an expression of deep concern. If that woman got a nickel for every time her picture showed up on Chinese television, she'd never in her life have to worry about the cost of gasoline.
Most of the news is delivered in voiceovers by faceless Chinese reporters. These men and women provide translation, in broken English, for the words of the speaker on screen, who may be speaking Chinese or some other foreign language. We even get "translations" for people speaking with heavy British accents, although the native speakers are much easier for us to understand than their Chinese interpreters. But occasionally stories are deemed worthy of coverage by a true English speaker. Usually this is someone named Dave Smith. Based on his voice as well as his name, I'd say that Dave is an American. I'd also say that he is an older American. He has the tone of voice and delivery that I associate with newsreels produced during the Second World War.
Perhaps because of this, Dave also does the talking on the embarrassingly jingoistic history pieces that CCTV trots out from time to time. Now, I happen to be about as naturally patriotic as, let's say, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, but I would have a hard time reading some of the scripts that get sent Dave's way. I can't help but squirm when he salutes the bravery of Chinese fighter pilots in the Korean war, who shot down "enemy planes", while what we are seeing on the screen is grainy black and white footage of jets bearing the distinctive logo of the American Air Force, plummeting to the ground in a death spiral.
The bosses must be happy with his work, because lately we have been hearing news reports from Susan Lee Smith, whom I assume to be his wife. But while Dave is heavy on the melodrama, Susan Lee has all the passion of someone speaking on an industrial training video. Everything she says sounds about as exciting as a recitation of the figures from the latest Five Year Plan of the Communist Party, something we are also sure to hear about.
The most recent beneficiary of Smith family nepotism is Melanie Smith. She reports the news with the sincerity of a high school valedictorian giving a graduation speech; I have taken to thinking of her as their daughter. Sometimes I wonder though, if "Smith" isn't just a pseudonym taken on to disguise the true identities of these unrelated people; worn to protect their self image like a comic set of fake eyeglasses, with a mustache and a big nose.
The stories that they cover are enough to shame anyone with sincere journalistic aspirations. A major theme of CCTV reports is livestock disasters. Mad Cow Disease comes up about once a month, and then gets covered every day for a week. Right now we are in the middle of a hoof and mouth disease marathon, with occasional breaks to show us the latest mound of frozen sheep carcasses piling up in Inner Mongolia. Lest you think that CCTV is only interested in animal husbandry I should add that last night we learned about the tusk decay crisis among the walruses at the Moscow zoo.
Another popular topic is robots. Now, I'll be the first to admit that I have an interest in this kind of technological development and even the New York Times is covering major commercial breakthroughs, like Sony's new robo-pet, "Aibo." But what we see here are tacky little toys coming out of South Korea, with silly faces, flashing eyes, and rotating heads, destined to be sold, or ignored, in Woolworth's. Any child unlucky enough to play with the likes of these will lose interest in them even before the batteries die.
There was one memorable robot report though, out of Japan I believe, about some "extremely advanced" robot toys that had a "personality" and would "learn" as you played with them. You could even modify your robot's behavior with software downloaded from the Internet. In order to emphasize the distinctiveness of these toys, they were sold in male and female versions. They both looked like little ping-pong balls, made cute with the addition of tiny ears and a tail, colored baby-blue for the boy, pink for the girl. They even had names; "Diddy" and "Titty"; I pity the poor Japanese executive who's cursed with marketing these in the USA.
I know that TV in America has a reputation for being bad, but tell me, is it anything compared to this?