media - Xinmin evening news, still going strong?

One discussion that came up several times in the past few weeks was the future of the Xinmin Evening news. With a circulation of around two million a day, it still is an evening paper that appeals to many. While elsewhere in the world the vanishing newspaper is high on the media agenda, Chinese dailies like the Xinmin, thanks to roaring revenue increases from advertissements, seem to be doing well, at least on the surface.
But two friends, former Xinmin Evening News readers, returned from abroad and pointed at major changes. First, the quality has gone done dramatically, they said. The former socialist newspaper used to be a exception in the boring media landscape up to ten years ago. Everybody who was something in literature used to write in the daily. It allowed many ordinary Shanghainese to get their own news stories published and was in that way a bit a weblog avant la lettre.
The parents of my friends were still dedicated Xinmin evening news readers, but nobody under 35 seems to read it anymore.
Younger journalists in de paper confirm and say they do not feel at home very well. "The paper nowadays only publishes Xinhua news," says one of them. "I'm not sure I want to stay." That would ten years ago be an unbelievable statement, as a job at the Xinmin evening news used to be an honor, and financially very interesting. When the paper is not going to keep the younger readers and journalists, it will die out.

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