China Seminar | 15 January 2004

Changing Roles of the Media in China

Robin CHENG Yunjie

The China Seminar begins its 29th year with a presentation by Robin Cheng Yunjie on the changing roles of the news media in the wake of the China’s opening up. Ms Cheng will touch upon a few themes like China’s press freedom, the relationship between government and news media, the media industry’s opening up toward private and overseas investment and the changing values of news rooms in China.

Ms. Cheng is currently a Parvin Fellow in Journalism at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Born in 1976 in Zhongdian County of Yunnan Province, Robin received an M.A. in International News Reporting from the China School of Journalism, where one of her professors was former Parvin/Freedom Forum Director Dr. Lowell Frazier of the University of Hawaii. The current director of the program is Professor Thomas Brislin. Cheng works as a bilingual reporter in the Department of Home News for Overseas Service in Xinhua, writing stories in both English and Chinese. Previously she interned with Xinhua’s China Features Department. She has traveled throughout China on assignment and was selected to cover the Ninth National People’s Congress in 2002.