Xinhua News Agency

The Xinhua News Agency ({{zh-stp|s=???|t=???|p=x?n huá shè}}), or NCNA (New China News Agency), is the official press agency of the government of the People's Republic of China and the biggest center for collecting information and press conferences in the PRC. It is one of the two news agencies in mainland China, the other being the China News Service, and is among the premier world news agencies.

Related Topics:
Press agency - People's Republic of China - Mainland China - China News Service

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Xinhua is an institution of the State Council of China. Critics of Xinhua therefore consider it to be an instrument of state-sponsored propaganda.

Related Topics:
State Council of China - Propaganda

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In many ways, Xinhua is the fuel propelling China's print media. Perhaps unique in the world because of its role, size, and reach, Xinhua reports directly to the Chinese Communist Party's Propaganda Department; employs more than 10,000 people ? as compared to about 1,300 for Reuters; has 107 bureaus worldwide both collecting information on other countries and dispensing information about China; and maintains 31 bureaus in China ? one for each province plus a military bureau. Inasmuch as most of the newspapers in China cannot afford to station correspondents abroad, or even in every Chinese province, they rely on Xinhua feeds to fill their pages. People's Daily, for example, uses Xinhua material for approximately 25 percent of its stories. Xinhua is a publisher as well as a news agency ? it owns more than 20 newspapers and a dozen magazines, and it prints in Chinese, English, and four other languages.

Related Topics:
Chinese Communist Party - Reuters - People's Daily - Chinese - English

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Like other government entities, Xinhua is feeling the pinch of reduced state financial subsidies. Beijing has been cutting funding to the news agency by an average of seven percent per year over the past three years, and state funds currently cover only about 40 percent of Xinhua's costs. As a result, the agency is raising revenues through involvement in public relations, construction, and information service businesses.

Related Topics:
Public relations - Construction

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In the past, Xinhua was able to attract the top young journalists emerging from the universities or otherwise newly entering the field, but it can no longer do so as easily because of the appeal and resources of other newspapers and periodicals and the greater glamour of television and radio jobs. For example, midlevel reporters for the Xinmin Evening News in Shanghai often are given an apartment, whereas at Xinhua and People's Daily this benefit is reserved for the most senior journalists.

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