The global media landscape is going through major changes.
The seismic shifts in the intellectual-journalistic hubs, which used to center around the European world with its Eurocentric biases and perspectives, based in London, New York city, Boston, and Washington D.C., are creating cracks which reveal a whole new dimension and perspective of the world and societies other than European, Western, and Anglo-White.
I have written before about the new information age, and how the major media behemoths are consolidating and clustering around fewer and fewer owners.
Thankfully, there is a new awakening and renewal happening in the non-West, which sees these changes in this new information age, and the new technology which has brought about easier access to news and information, the generation and shaping of these news in more rapid news cycles of 24-7 coverage, as a challenge and a "wei-ji," i.e. an opportunity in the face of danger.
As I previously wrote in this blogsite, the world will be divided between the new "masters" and the new "slaves;"i.e. those societies capable and nimble enough to seize hold and avail of the opportunities brought about by the internet and the challenges of this new information age, who can go global, and seamlessly shape and control the "wells" of information, albeit, the "faucet" to the wellsprings of news and information, in the arbitraging of this news and information, will rule the day.
We have seen the efforts initiated by Al Jazeera... and how Al Jazeera managed to catapult itself from its desert oasis, in providing the news and information which reach out to a major market in the Islamic World.
Not content to sit on its laurels, Al Jazeera has now gone global, and expanding rapidly in the Anglo-phone world outside of the Islamic world.
It is a model which global Chinese in the Huaren world need to learn from.
I have always taken the position that the global Huaren communities, scattered in over 135 countries around the world, are well-pivoted to face up to the challenges and opportunities in a new world of globalization.
The emergence of the new intellectual centers, news media organizations, in the coverage of news internationally, the analyses of news, the unique perspectives that Chinese-owned news media journalists can potentially offer, on the global stage, have yet to be nurtured and explored, to be creatively and entreprenurially expanded.
But there are signs that change is coming. There is a new generation coming to the fore in Asia-Pacific. And the young are savvy technically; hopefully, they are also resourceful and know where they are coming from and harness the talents from their roots.
More and more... we are seeing more ethnic Chinese reaching out into the Anglo-phone world, beyond the Chinese language, into other languages and dialects, in order to meet the challenges of globalization.
The launching of GLOBAL TIMES, in its English edition, by the PEOPLE'S DAILY, is welcome news. Here's the link to this new English news website; bookmark it:
http://en.huanqiu.com/
As I write this, many major mainstream American news organizations, such as the New York Times or the Chicago Tribune news organizations, are under siege, and on the brink of falling apart financially, and can't cope with rising costs and the burdens of publishing print media. In San Francisco, the Hearst-owned SF Chronicle is hemmorhaging badly. In Seattle, they just shut down the Seattle Post Intelligencer.
In Denver, Colorado, the shutdown of the Rocky Mountain News is just a sign of tough economic times in America. In Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times is bleeding red ink profusely. Its owner, Sam Zell, who also owns the Chicago Tribune News and its slew of media organizations, keeps cutting staff and paring down with no end in sight.
All in all, it is an ugly media landscape in all of America. Johnny Six Pack and Soccer Jane Mom be damned. They don't read newspapers anymore over here; and advertisers are switching from old media to new online media.
These are signs of the past; and the new paths to news coverage and information arbitrage are upon us. And Asia-Pacific should and must lead the way. In South Asia, we are seeing stirrings among Indian intellectuals, writers, and journalists. Mumbai, India, is becoming more and more visible in the global stage. And a surfeit of Indo-American "talking heads" have penetrated the once dominant Anglo-white American news media networks.. both print and broadcast. Fareed Zakaria is now a regular in the American "talking heads" circuit.
Are the Chinese intellectuals and journalists around the globe, in the Chinese Diaspora, up to the task of meeting these challenges, and thinking beyond the box ?
GLOBAL TIMES is just a minor step but a new beginning.
http://en.huanqiu.com/www/english/china/ChinaNews/2009-04/427242_2.html
The global Huaren communities, outside of China mainland, should and must provide the brain trust and the brain power to lead the way in this new Information Age, and provide new alternatives to the same old, tired ways of disseminating, reporting, analyzing, and understanding the news which shape the social-political-economic-cultural events happening around the world.
WELCOME - GLOBAL TIMES.
THE MORE THE MERRIER.
LET A HUNDRED FLOWERS BLOOM... Let a HUNDRED IDEAS CONTEND !
Incidentally, where's SINGAPORE on this ? One of the few Anglophone Asian countries, with hugh potential among its human resources, of Indian and Chinese writers and journalists, articulate and savvy, have not met up to the challenge. What a cop-out.
Wake up, Singaporeans. Wake up. Don't be "Kiasu." Be "Mumbai" !
