http://www.bjreview.com MARCH 12, 2020 BEIJING REVIEW 45
CULTURE
Copyedited by Sudeshna Sarkar
Comments to [email protected]has been doing his job with perseverance.
The video made up for her regret over the
botched interview eight years ago. She has
now learned how to be a real anchor.
The competition, started in 1998, aims
to provide a national competition platform
for TV anchors and select outstanding ones
for future programs.
Li’s story shows her personal growth. It
also shows how an old variety show has been
UHPRGHOHG,QVWHDGRIEHLQJFRQĶQHGWRWKH
studio wearing chic clothes, anchors are now
encouraged to do on-site interviews and tell
the stories they experience.
Good storytelling
The results of the competition are evalu-
ated by a panel of judges from universities
and other professions as well as the view-
ers. Many viewers said on Weibo, a popular
Chinese social media platform, that they
were touched by the stories of ordinary
people told by the anchors.
“As a media practitioner, this program
made me understand better how to tell sto-
ries,” Li Jin, a 25 year-old journalist based in
Nanjing, told Beijing Review.
“This competition aims to assess the
ability of the anchors to tell a good story,”
Jing Yidan, Director of China Television
Broadcaster Association, told China Youth
Daily.
In Shenzhen, Guangdong Province in
south China, a car wash company employs
people with autism, Down syndrome and
cerebral palsy. Tian Jinghua, a contestant,
went to the car wash and washed 53 cars
with them. While telling the story of the
washers, he said they’ve got what they want,
earn money for their own livelihood and be
embraced by society.
Nineteen more car washes in 16 cities
around China have now adopted this model
to offer more opportunities to people with
developmental disabilities, Tian said while
concluding his story.
Another contestant, Feng Shuo, spent
seven hours on corkscrew mountain roads,
climbing two mountains over 5,000 meters
above sea level to visit the border guards
in Tibet Autonomous Region in southwest
China. He followed them on their patrols,
experiencing the harsh natural environment
and hard life. Fourteen guards lost their lives
on these paths in the past 30 years, but no
one has chosen to quit. One of the guards
has been working there for 18 years. Their
persistence is the epitome of the sense of
mission and responsibility of every Chinese
soldier, Feng said.
He also said the field visit enabled him
to reflect more on his profession. He now
understands that anchors should not limit
themselves to reading news in the studio,
but do more spot coverage and tell stories
that are touching and inspiring.Wider talent pool
“I saw a lot of new faces in this year’s com-
petition,” Chen Yongqing, Deputy Director
of China Central Television (CCTV) Financial
Channel, said. “Moreover, with their edu-cational background and strong abilities to
analyze and comprehend things, they have
shown great potential.”
2IWKHFRQWHVWDQWVLQWKHĶUVWURXQG
of the competition, 40 percent had a doctor-
ate or master’s degree. And their professional
backgrounds were more diversified. There
were majors in geography, foreign languages
and literature, computer science and public
policy. About 56 percent of the anchors were
in their 20s or 30s.
“Diverse backgrounds and overseas
study experiences are needed to enrich the
image of the group and meet the changing
requirements of TV programs,” Jing said.
Gong Fan, one of the contestants, spoke
about using artificial intelligence in writing
poetry in her three-minute presentation. A
postgraduate in computer science from the
University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia,
the U.S., she said her academic background
helped her to explain the technology.
Yu Hong, Deputy Dean of the School of
Journalism and Communication at Peking
University, said the changing world calls for
more young people from various disciplines
with different personalities to get involved in
the industry.
The 2020 Spring Festival gala show of
CCTV, aired on January 24, had five hosts.
And two of them were from the contest,
which meant a big break for them. QCai Zi (second left) wins
the 2019 CMG Anchoring
Competition in Beijing
on February 1FILE