China’s top party mouthpieces pledge ‘absolute loyalty’ as president makes rare visits to newsrooms
Xi Jinping visits People’s Daily, CCTV and Xinhua, exhorting them to embody the will of the Communist Party
Entertainment, social and international news should be edited in the “right direction”, just like domestic news, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Friday as he told state media and tabloids to alike to uphold the Communist Party leadership.
Party-owned media should put political awareness first and let “positive propaganda” be the majority of the public voice, Xi told heads and veteran journalists from media outfits including People’s Daily, CCTV and Xinhua.
The talk came amid a subtle but steady propaganda campaign to promote Xi as the core of the leadership and pushing senior officials across the country to declare their “absolute loyalty”.
“Party-owned media must hold the family name of the party,” Xi said. “They must embody the party’s will, safeguard the party’s authority … their actions must be highly consistent with the party.”
Xi demanded all news reporting and commentaries should follow the “right direction” – from party mouthpieces to commercial tabloids and online media. And that applied to all sections of media coverage – news, supplements, special programmes, advertisement and entertainment news, Xinhua quoted Xi as saying. He also tasked party-run media outlets to beef up their international influence and to build an “external propaganda flagship media”.
Earlier that day Xi, accompanied by his Politburo Standing Committee colleague Liu Yunshan, the party’s ideological tsar who oversees the propaganda apparatus, made a rare tour of People’s Daily, CCTV and Xinhua.