Six years of The Beijing News

The Beijing News
November 11, 2009

Today’s edition of The Beijing News weighs in at a hefty 264 pages.

Launched on November 11, 2003, the newspaper celebrates its sixth anniversary with a 172-page feature on the economic outlook for 2010. Twenty-two economists, from Mao Yushi to Martin Jacques, offer their thoughts on trends for the upcoming year.

A separate section looking back on notable reports from the past six years includes an interview with Dai Zigeng, president of The Beijing News. The first question describes how the newspaper came to be:

Reporter: The Beijing News is six years old. Looking back, what were the circumstances that led to the founding of the paper?

Dai Zigeng: The paper’s former incarnation was Life Times, which lasted for five years and not only failed to carry on but ended up owing the printers a lot of money, becoming a burden for the Guangming Daily. At the end of 2002, Xue Changci, the editorial committee member in charge of the paper [now editor in chief of Guangming Daily] looked me up to ask whether the paper could be rescued. I said the possibility existed, but what was really needed was to change the format and do a redesign, and start it over again. Later, I went with them to various places, primarily in search of partner. At the end of June, 2003, I had the unexpected opportunity to be in Guangzhou talking to then general manager of Southern Metropolis Daily Yu Huafeng. At the time, SMD was looking to expand, and we quickly came to an agreement and decided on a preliminary direction.

But many people in the Beijing newspaper sector were not very optimistic about The Beijing News, because at the time the city already had around ten newspapers, and they thought the market was saturated and there was no longer any room to squeeze in. Others were dubious that a paper run according to the Southern Media ideal would fit in in Beijing. Some friends in sponsoring organizations advised that using the financing I had to start an economics or consumer newspaper, or a weekly with detailed market analysis, would have a brighter future.

The Beijing News
November 11, 2003

But we were determined to run a metropolitan newspaper. Our reasoning: first, the quality of the existing metropolitan papers in Beijing was not very high, and was particularly poor in satisfying the reading needs of middle- to high-end populations; second, market competition was not too fierce, nothing like what it was around Guangzhou; third, as a cosmopolitan city, Beijing possessed an advertising market with latent potential; fourth, Southern Media’s newspaper philosophy was quite well-suited to jointly-run newspapers — I’d been in Guangzhou for many years and had personally witnessed the Southern Media Group’s strategies for advancement and expansion; fifth, Southern Media was talent-rich, something no other outlet could match — they not only could plan and act, but they were willing to fight, and they had rich practical experience; sixth, Guangming Daily could lend the power of its advantageous political position, enhancing the resources and advantages I mentioned previously.

The Beijing News debuted with a cover photo of former US president Bill Clinton embracing “AIDS boy” Song Pengfei, a young man who contracted HIV through a hospital blood transfusion and became a well-known advocate for the rights of persons with HIV.

Today’s cover image shows the aftermath of a bus accident at Beijing’s Sihui station. A public bus started up unexpectedly, and as the driver tried to bring it under control, it smashed another bus, toppled a sign, and killed a waiting passenger.