Ding Junhui and snooker hot in China, China Daily sports coverage lukewarm
Tuesday, 6th April 2010 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (1)
This was supposed to be a post about Ding Junhui, China's popular snooker sensation, and his performance in the finals at the past weekend's China Open. Instead, it's a post about something that's bothered me for a long time—sports coverage on China Daily's Web site.Since I'm not in China at the moment, and therefore couldn't watch CCTV-5, I went online Monday to find out how Ding had fared over the weekend. He played his way into the semis Friday, and beat Mark Allen in the semis Saturday. He lost the final to Welshman Mark Williams, but to look at China Daily's online sports page Monday, you would think he hadn't played it yet:The latest news there was stuck on last Thursday, Ding's birthday and the day he won his second round game.
As the official state-run English-language newspaper, China Daily isn't somewhere that those in the know go for hard-hitting investigative journalism—but four days behing on something as innocuous as a snooker tournament? By the time they get the news up, will anyone who cares about it not know already? And it's not unusual for China Daily's coverage to lag like that.
China Daily's biggest online competitor, Xinhua, has better sports coverage, and did have up-to-date news from Beijing:
And if you're wondering why we're even talking about snooker, it's because the game has quite a following in China. As Sam Pearson wrote in a post here in December, "The increasingly popular [cue] sports have a rare combination of Chinese world beaters, government support, affordability, a fashionable image and excellent domestic TV coverage." (Pot the Reds: Cue sports in China). Ding Junhui, 24, is the face of snooker in China, having burst onto the scene with big wins in 2005. He's even inspired the creation of an animated TV series based on the adventures of a young Ding in snooker competitions. The game ranked fourth in sports television broadcast hours in 2009, after soccer, basketball and tennis, according to TNS Sport China. And Ding is sponsored by Mengniu Dairy, one of China's biggest consumer goods companies.
Tags: China Daily, Ding Junhui, snooker, sports media, Xinhua
China Sports Today joins ESPN Olympics roundtable
Thursday, 7th August 2008 ~ Chris ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
China Daily's Zhou and Newsweek's Liu
With the torch on its way to entering the National Stadium aka 'The Bird's Nest', American sports network ESPN arranged a journalist roundtable to discuss the political repercussions of China hosting the games, as well as how China will perform in different events.
Host Anthony Tao was joined by Newsweek Beijing bureau chief Melinda Liu, China Daily columnist Raymond Zhou, Sexy Beijing writer, editor and host Anna Sophie Loewenberg.
Rounding out the roundtable was Maggie Rauch, who is now based in Beijing where she is co-founder and editor of China Sports Today.
Sexy Beijing's Loewenberg and China Sports Today's Rauch
A transcript of the ESPN roundtable can be viewed here. Our favorite quote may be this one by China Daily's Zhou:
"Personally, I only care about Liu Xiang because I feel Liu Xiang winning the gold medal is tantamount to Barack Obama winning the presidency in the United States. Because it's about more than sports. It's about shattering stereotypes that Asians are intrinsically not good at track and field."
Image: ESPN
Tags: Barack Obama, China Daily, ESPN, Liu Xiang, Newsweek, Olympics, Sexy Beijing