A Confession
Recently I've been watching quite a bit of CCTV 9, the international channel. While in the past I've dismissed it as the television version of the China Daily, I must confess that these past couple of weeks it's been really, really good. I'm impressed with it on just about every level: good reporting, good production, excellent level of English among the anchors and reporters, smart interviewers -- one named Kate Kui comes to mind -- asking (albeit with occasional diction errors) tough and fair-minded questions of serious guests, balanced reporting on things international issues like the prison abuse scandal in Iraq and relatively hard-hitting reporting on domestic issues like AIDS, drug addiction, environmental degradation. They're running a series called "China's Challenges" right now that features more than your usual head-in-the-sand approach to big problems. I've also seen some very well done historical shorts, like a 15 minute mini-doc on Chang'an during Tang. I hope this keeps up.