Credibility
Bloomberg Businessweek commented on the opening of Xinhua Finance, saying that it would have to overcome the "Xinhua stigma" of being associated with "official propaganda", and suspicions by outsiders of its credibility. In an interview with Indian media in 2007, the head of Xinhua, Tian Congmin, affirmed the problem of "historical setbacks and popular perceptions". Newsweek criticized Xinhua as "being best known for its blind spots" regarding controversial news in China, and mentioned that its "coverage of the United States is hardly fair and balanced". Even so, "Xinhua's spin diminishes when the news doesn't involve China".
During the 2003 SARS outbreak, Xinhua was slow to release reports of the incident to the public. However, its reporting in the aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake was seen in as more transparent and credible as Xinhua journalists operated more freely. After the Beijing Television Cultural Center fire, cognizant of Xinhua's "tardy" reporting in contrast to bloggers, China announced the investment of 20 billion yuan to Xinhua. The vice president of the China International Publishing Group commented on this, saying that quantity of media exposure would not necessarily help perceptions of China. Rather, he said, media should focus on emphasizing Chinese culture and the Chinese way of life "to convey the message that China is a friend, not an enemy".
Xinhua for its own part has criticized the perception of Western media objectivity, citing an incident during the 2008 Tibetan unrest when Western media outlets used a picture of Nepalese police beating Tibetan protesters, misleadingly labeling the pictures as of Chinese police, with commentary from CNN calling Chinese leaders "goons and thugs". CNN later apologized for the comments, but Richard Spencer of The Sunday Telegraph defended what he conceded was "biased" Western media coverage of the riots, blaming China for not allowing foreign media access to Tibet during the conflict.
Read more about this topic: Xinhua News Agency