Problems And Solutions Of International News Production By Chinese Parachute Journalists

The balanced development of international news reporting is hard since it is closely linked with the changes of global politics, ecomomies and technologies. The traditional media organizations are cutting the numbers of foreign bureaus and reduce the budget on international reporting. But China’s international news input is increasing on the contrary. Under the context of the increase of overall national power, the support of relevant polices and the intense competition of domestic news, China’s media orgazations are exploring international reporting practices in order to compete at the new platform of international news. Most Chinese media organizations are not allowed to have their own foreign correspondents so they have to send their parachute journalists to cover news. It is still a new practice for most Chinese media though many of them are now trying it. These parachute journalists are strongly questioned and ctriticied for their lack of experiences and bad performances during the reporting for the missing airline of MH370 at the beginning of 2014. This paper aims therefore to study this new reporting model of Chinese media on international coverage by parachute journalists.The core research topics of this paper are the problems, influences and solutions for international news production of Chinese parachute journalists. Through the methodologies of questionares, indeth-interviews, case studies and close reading of news stories,37 parachute journalists in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou were interviewed and 74 sent back their questionares so the background of these journalists can be analyzed. By collecting different cases of international reporting, classifying the predicaments of their experiences, analyzing the problems of news stories, adopting relevant theoretical frameworks on news production, analyzing influences on news production of these parachute journalists, this paper tries to discuss the most applicable models of influences on news production for parachute journalists’reporting practices, and also provide possible solutions from the dimensions of practitioners, news production routines and media environment.There are six types of predicaments encountered by Chinese parachute journalists:the first, parachute journalists are insufficient in foreign languages, experiences and resources, professional capacities and professional dedication; the second, the difficulties of arriving news spots and bewilderment of working routines are faced by parachute journalists; the third, a bias of domestication has been found in news production process of selection of topics, reporting angles, news gathering and representation; the forth, the ethical problems include resorting to controversial means of reporing and sponsoring for reporting; the fifth, financial pressures and budget shortage, and the changes of regulations and policies would bring possible risks to international reporting; the sixth, the diversity and instability of professional roles lead to disapproval of professional identities.The theoretical framework of influences on news has been adopted to analyze the influences on Chinese parachute journalists’reporting. It has been found out that the influences of practitioners’dimension include professional capacities, ethics and identities; the influences of news production routines include preparations, the selection and training of parachute journalists, management and support of media organizations, editing routines and regulations; the influences of media environment include economic issues, regulations and policies, and technologies. The original model of influences is modified on the basis of these findings in order to make it more adaptable to Chinese parachute journalists’ reporting. The possible solutions are also discussed based on this adapted model. The two collateral approaches of solutions aim to improve the present news production as well as innovate the new model of news production. The solutions include transforming parachute journalist from domestic journalist to international ones by changing their way of thinking, correcting their attribution bias, participating in communities of practices and reconstructing professional identities. The second way of solution is to build an international reporting mechanism by allowing more sources of budget and funding, specializing international reporting regulations and popularizing technical support inder to improve the media ecological environment, and by diversification of international reporting topics and types, and projectized management of international reporting in order to improve news production mechanism. The third way of solution is to innovate reporting model in order to solve the problems on the dimensions of practitioners, news production routines and media environment. Crowdsourcing, crowdfunding and crowdwisdom of journalism are helpful in solving the problem of buget shortage, changing the bias of the traditional news production routines and restrictions of media organizations, improving the quality of Chinese parachute journalists’reportring through sharing crowdwisdom.The practice of international reporting by Chinese parachute journalists are produced, developed and changed under the two-way interactivity and intergrowth of "global" and "local’" forces. The interactivity can be found out at different levels of reporters, contents. channels and audiences, news production process, as well as media environments. To discuss the predicaments, problems and solutions of these practices, is in nature to study how these practices are adapted and evolved under the influences of global-local forces. The study finds that under the chanllenges and shocks brought by news globalization, China’s local news media has an "adaptive mechanism" to find a way to adapt to the changes. This mechanism has the following two features:the first, the adaption process can be found at two perspectives of survival and competition. On one hand, they keep breaking the boundaries of regulations and policies to start their own international reporting production autonomy and seek for an opportunity of survival. On the other hand, they creat a unique value of their news by adapting a two-way strategy of "localizing" international news while at the same time "internationalizing" local news, so that their international news are different from the ones provided by international media and news agencies. The second, the adaptive mechanism of local media is a continuing, dynamic and changing process and the influences on this mechanism include practitioners at micro level, the news production and media environment at meso-level, social cultural and ideological influences at macro level. At the present, this adaptive mechanism is still at the beginning phrase of its development and has various problems under the influences of different derminants of news production.The problems encountered by Chinese pharachute journalists actually reflect the problems of this adaptive mechanism.This study provides a sample of empirical study under China’s social context on the research of global-local frame and the changes of news industry, which would be helpful to discuss how local news practices adapt and change under the global-local frame. The related future research topics include:types and patterns of how local media adapt under the frame of glocal verus local; the implications and ways of how local reporters transform from domestic journalists to international ones; how local media can represent local relevance while at the same time avoid the bias of news localization.