Tuesday, March 17, 2009 6:55 AM by will
There was an interesting profile of CCTV personality Rui Chenggang by journalist Dave Barboza in yesterday's New York Times. Or, at least as interesting as a 1,200 word profile can be. With all respect to Mr. Barboza, who has done some great stories, I get the feeling Rui and the phenomenon he represents would make a good subject for 10,000 words in the New Yorker. Or maybe it's just me. But for the moment, anyway, this piece will have to do:
[Mr. Rui] , who drives a Jaguar to work and wears Zegna suits, says his goals reach beyond media stardom. He wants to use his celebrity to build bridges with the West and help change world opinion about China, which he says suffers because of biased foreign media coverage and the country’s poor training in communication.
“China has a really bad image problem,” Mr. Rui says after a broadcast one evening, while lounging at the Ritz-Carlton hotel. “I’m gathering a group of people and we hope to do something about that.”
Well, it's still a bit of a vague plan, but you gotta start somewhere.
Longtime readers may remember Mr. Rui as the personality who's blog put the final spike through the long-controversial Forbidden City Starbucks a couple of years ago. The Times article notes that today, " Chinese tea is served there." Which is true. But so is espresso. So, plus ca change and all that.
Imagethief has actually worked with Mr. Rui, at a corporate event three years ago. I remember him as articulate, smart and prepared, and not particularly copping an attitude. But, then, I wouldn't know a Zegna suit if you wrapped twenty pounds of Starbuck's coffee beans in one and used it to beat me to death.
Zegna suits or not, though, Rui is right: China does have an image problem. In woolgathering by e-mail about the woeful state of China's international PR to a (foreign) journalist recently, I pointed out that articulate, bilingual pop-culture figures are much better ambassadors for China than any amount of state-backed media ever will be. Think Yao Ming rather than Yang Rui.
Rui Chenggang, who is polished and articulate in English, could be such an ambassador. But he isn't yet, and I don't think he will be as long as he works within CCTV. He's articulate, charismatic and connected. But the state-media credibility tax is so high for overseas audiences that I think it will overshadow any advocacy effort he undertakes. He'd be more effective as a private citizen, as it were, or maintaining at least a healthy distance from CCTV. Barboza raises this point in the article:
Because his positions often parrot Beijing’s critiques of foreign journalists, Mr. Rui is asked whether he engages in propaganda handed down by the government. He compares it with Fox News coverage of the White House during a Republican administration.
Yikes. Bad comparison. About the only thing that differentiates Fox News in the Bush years from Chinese state television in my books is graphics quality and the fact that the female anchors on Fox had more contemporary hairstyles. Otherwise, they were about equally credible. On this question, Rui offers one more parting thought:
“I hate the word propaganda.”
Well, me too. But if Rui wants to escape the shadow of propaganda, move past his proven ability to motivate Chinese audiences, and be a credible international advocate for China, he'll need to abandon the aegis of CCTV. If he ever does, I'll be interested to see the results.
source：http://news.imagethief.com/blogs/china/archive/2009/03/17/rui-chenggang-and-advocating-for-china.aspx
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