PEKING'S NEWSPAPER “PEOPLE’S DAILY” IS AVIDLY STUDIED FOR PARTY LINE

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33077, 18 November 1972, Page 14

PEKING'S NEWSPAPER “PEOPLE’S DAILY” IS AVIDLY STUDIED FOR PARTY LINE

(By

MARTIN WOOLLACOTT.

reporting to the "Guardia, Manchester from Peking)

(Reprinted by arrangement) Every Chinese holding a position of reonsibility in pai t) the administration is as much a Pekinologist as any Western sc materials he works on are very much the same.

The single most essential guide for a cadre attempting to interpret the sometimes confusing or ambiguous line emanating from Peking is the “People’s Daily,” the organ of the Central Committee. From this he draws vital information about policy changes small and large, and hints about balance of power at any moment within the higher leadership. “Cadres study banquet and guest lists with as avid attention as a Hong Kong China watcher,” one diplomat said.

The “People’s Daily,” its masthead in Chairman Mao’s own calligraphy, is obviously a very special sort of paper but it shares some problems with Western journals. Chen Chun, a member of the paper’s seven-man chief editors’ group which collectively runs the “People’s Daily,” ticked off a few during a visit by the British press party in China with the Foreign Secretary, Sir Alec Douglas-Home. There were murmurs of recognition and amusement as Mr Chen revealed that the “People’s Daily” too has to print corrections when dreamy subeditors make mistakes, that the paper is often several hours late because of delayed stories, and that it has enormous circulation problems even though produced in nine provincial capitals as well as Peking.

No reporters But the “People’s Daily,” has almost no reporters in the Western sense. Its writers — and there are 160 of them — produce only editorials, commentaries, and interpretative articles.

Of the 300 staff, however, some one hundred are involved in a sort of Marxist version of investigative reporting. “People’s Daily” has interpreted the call for cadres to return periodically to the “basic units” in a journalistic way. While civil servants and even academics have in the past gone off to factory and farm jobs the “People’s Daily” men in effect go off on assignment. They are given a theme such as primary school education and spend months visiting and living in such schools at the end of which time they produce long articles. Others attend the newspaper’s own rather special May Seventh Cadre School where rather unusually only 50 per cent of the time is spent on manual labour.

Not counting those temporarily absent in this way the “People’s Daily” has 200 staff at the main office at any one time, about 40 concerned with organisation and layout. The rest are specialists, including some 70 foreign affairs specialists and 60 working on domestic topics/ For ordinary news items domestic and foreign, thl paper relies on New Chin News Agency’s network | 1000 correspondents. I

What the writers dr It might thus be difficul to work out just what thsl6o writers do. In fact they fork in about four related jreas. The very top level / the occasional major e/torial giving “strategic” gldance on party policy. These editorials, like traditional October 1 joint iditorials with the party joianai “Red Flag” and the ruin army newspaper, can t«9e as much as a month to appear and are checked in numarous liaison sessions with Central Committee members Then come commentaries, important suifeys of policy in particular /teas. These are frequently Written by outsiders who are “helped in preparing jhem for publication” by “People’s Daily” stats. TAese represent an artfculatton and clarification of the more general party pronouncements, which often sedn contradictory to behused cadres. When a new pqicy or modified policy emerges in Peking there is, it s®ms, then a search for some appropriate person, sometmes a low ranking cadre, to Vrite it up — with the aid of a professional journalist. At the next level are what night be called exemplary ales, which even more rividly clarify the line. Out

of the surprisingly variety of social <nd economic arrangement in China’s farms, factorieand towns a particular ommune or factory wi be picked out and writtf up. It could be a comune where private plots arlarge yet output for the Ste is very high—a story crying a message about thetecessity to retain incentre for the time being. Or it mid be a tale about a shipyd hke one our party sv m Shanghai, lauding it »r constructive improvisatto and carrying a messag abcut premature hankerir, after Western style mpchnisaton in a country where iass unemployment world be the inevitable result of ** ch policy. i _ , Finally, there Is a set of complaints and i suggetions area where etters and articles from qiite omnary people are usedin th same way. A party orgn The "People’s W >s very much a partyiri?an. It has never had revolutionary committe even though the CultuJ Revolution shook it up ai it briefly did not publish.’or has it ever brought > People s Liberation Artf men as most institutior “id during the Cultural Revolution. Chen Chun was almost shocked at the thought. “This is the organ of the Central Connittee of the party,” he aid. “It has a guiding rolein ideology and work.” I From/ his newspaper’s plainly/dfcorated office in centrarering the word goes out ih morning to 3.4 millioi readers all over ChinrfSoubling the figure to accoii for people who read it wftout buying gives us about seven million readers or stpents of the line. Probablypefining pretty clearly the ten who run China, almost all of them party meiers.

The “People’s Daily” makes a consistent profit, which it hands over to the State, and it is no wonder. Failure to read it earefully could lead to far more lethal blunders than boobing at a cocktail party abaut the latest book or film ar public opinion poll on tht United States election, the kind of thing that worries Western readers. In the presence of the “People’s Daly” men we visiting journ dusts felt lightweight. We Fere reporters and they in some sense are priests, i