Danwei was sent a free copy of The First ( or ‘competition news’), a newspaper that published its first issue on December 28, 2004. The paper claims to focus on the progress of the ‘great Olympic times’.
The newspaper is jointly owned by Beijing Daily Group, Shanghai Media Group (SMG) and Beijing Youth Daily. Its concept is “life philosophy of balanced development”. A countdown to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games is published on the top-right of every front page.
It is a sports newspaper with some original stuff inside. But the layout and print quality is very poor. Today’s front page (left) features a photo of eight Chinese hostages in Iraq, which was the most popular photo for today’s newspapers.