People’s Daily holds first Belt and Road media workshop

Fifty-four senior journalists from 26 leading African and Latin American news organisations as well as Chinese journalists are participating in the maiden Belt and Road News Network (BRNN) workshop in China.

Participants in the workshop who include 28 African journalists will undertake a two-week reporting trip from September 15 to September 29, 2019, in Beijing, Guiyang and Shenzhen, all major cities in three Chinese provinces.

As part of the workshop the journalists will visit some major Chinese media organisations and receive lectures on topics such as ‘New media technology operation’ and the ‘Design and making of new media products’ from Chinese professors from the Communication University of China Chinese media organisation, the People’s Daily, which established the BRNN in collaboration with media organisations worldwide in April 2019, says the network is to increase exchanges and cooperation among media organisations across the world.

It is also meant to pool wisdom to meet the challenges of the changing media industry and promote the building of Belt and Road.

The President of People’s Daily, Mr Li Baoshan, explained that the workshop was being organised as the response to an appeal for deeper cooperation from participants of a Media Cooperation Forum on Belt and Road held last year.
Network

“BRNN will build an open and cooperative platform under the Belt and Road Initiative. It aims to promote mutual assistance, collaboration and exchanges among members,” Mr Li said.

He explained that the network will carry out various pragmatic cooperation and innovation and strengthen research on major issues on the Belt and Road initiative.
People’s Daily, which was established in 1948, is the largest and most influential newspaper in China with a daily circulation of 3.48 million.

During a tour of the new media centre of the People’s Daily after the opening ceremony, the External Relations Officer, Mr Philip Zhou said the media establishment employs 10,000 people with 500 in the editorial department as editors and journalists while the new media centre had a 100-member staff. The organisation also has 32 foreign bureaus across the world.