CCTV election coverage opens new front in media war
CCTV's ambitious global expansion takes a giant step this week with live coverage of the US election, but can the service garner credibility?
The headquarters of CCTV America in Washington sits just 10 blocks from the White House. By the time the identity of the next resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is known later this week, China will have opened a new front in what it sees as a war to wrest control of the global news agenda from Western-dominated media giants such as CNN and the BBC.
From 8pm US time on Tuesday, 50 million people around the world - just a tiny fraction of them in mainland China - will be able to watch uninterrupted English-language coverage of a US presidential election in real time through a Chinese - albeit state-controlled - prism for the first time.
In one of China Central Television's biggest journalistic undertakings outside its home market, the station will air up to six hours of live coverage of the election results as ordinary Americans find out whether Barack Hussein Obama, 51, or Willard Mitt Romney, 65, is to be the next president of the United States.
More than 100 journalists, producers and technicians will staff the output, which will consist of live debate and discussion from CCTV's studios in the American capital, plus reaction from correspondents based in 10 cities around the world.
(CCTV's promotion video on 2012 US presidential eletion coverage)
