By: (AP) Zhang Yanping doesn't sleep much.
The president of the Beijing Youth Daily, which Zhang has built from a drab propaganda outlet into a lively, popular newspaper, gets four to five hours a night. Even that's too much for him.
"There are so many opportunities ahead of us, I just don't want to let them slip out of my hands," Zhang said as he relaxed in a conference room at the Youth Daily's 23-story headquarters.
On Wednesday, the Youth Daily -- China's second-biggest urban newspaper -- plans to make history as the first state media outfit to sell shares to foreign investors, with an initial public offering in Hong Kong.
Communist authorities have granted Zhang and other publishers new commercial autonomy in an effort to make China's state press financially self-supporting and end its need for subsidies.
Under Zhang's leadership, the Youth Daily has added features that are common abroad but were pioneering for China -- color photos, graphics, and coverage of sports, cars, celebrities, and the Internet. Circulation soared from 100,000 in 1996 to 600,000 last year.
The Youth Daily walks a fine line, staying within official censorship that still restricts what Chinese media can report on politics, corruption, and other sensitive topics.
"As long as we follow the laws, we can report what appeals to people," Zhang said.
Zhang is "ahead of the curve" in seizing opportunities to remake a Chinese newspaper, said Ying Chan, dean of the journalism school at Hong Kong's Shantou University.
"It's a combination of vision, a sense of the market, and his ability to deal with party old-liners," she said. "That's a skill that you need. He's good at the balancing act."
Zhang stresses that even if the public owns a stake in the Youth Daily, that won't affect what it says.
Going public "is only a means to serve our overall development strategy to transform the Beijing Youth Daily into a modern news group," he said.
The stock sale in Hong Kong involves selling shares in a Youth Daily subsidiary that handles the paper's advertising sales, and news reports say it could raise more than $100 million. Zhang wouldn't confirm that or say who the target shareholders are.
"I'm bound by rules," he said, referring to Hong Kong regulations that limit what companies can say before a public offering.
Hong Kong is Chinese territory but is treated by Beijing as a foreign territory in economic matters. Its stock exchange is a popular place for mainland companies to raise money from foreign investors.
Chinese newspapers began making money from advertising in 1992, when communist leaders started trimming subsidies amid economic reforms that are creating a more prosperous reading public.
Zhang, 46, started out as an education reporter in 1981 and rose to become editor-in-chief. He has been president since 2002.
"I've contributed my best years to the newspaper," he said. "I am the only person who has worked all the way up from reporter to president. I was at the right place at the right time."
Founded in 1955, the Youth Daily is controlled by the Communist Youth League. But ties to a ruling party that has abandoned Marxist ideals are no barrier to commercial ambitions.
Even the highbrow People's Daily, the party's main mouthpiece, has begun running reader-friendly color photos and operates a multilingual Web site with online discussion forums.
China's biggest urban paper, the Guangzhou Daily, in the southern business center of Guangzhou, is reportedly planning its own stock market listing, though details haven't been released.
In the Youth Daily headquarters on Beijing's east side, 300 reporters and editors work alongside photographers, graphic designers, and Web masters. Clocks in the newsroom show times in London, Moscow, Cairo, Sydney, and Los Angeles. Eight huge television screens can be tuned to 80 different stations.
According to Zhang, two-thirds of its readers are regular subscribers -- the kind of dependable market advertisers covet.
"They are people with high incomes, high degrees, and high positions. Because of the 'three highs,' they are a group with strong consumer power," he said.
Revenue last year hit 1 billion yuan ($120 million) and Zhang says he hopes to quadruple the figure by 2008.
The newspaper has changed its motto from "Wherever there is news, we will be there" to "News carries weight" as a way to emphasize its new focus on in-depth reporting.
Still another design overhaul is planned this year.
Zhang hopes to expand the Youth Daily's presence into television, the Internet, and cell-phone text messaging.
Zhang said his biggest challenge is to keep pace with ever-changing reader interests. He said the Youth Daily conducts a survey every month to "adjust our thinking and practices accordingly."
Despite their commercial freedom, Chinese newspapers still can run afoul of communist authorities.
Earlier this year, two editors at the Southern Metropolitan Daily in Guangzhou were jailed on corruption charges after their paper gained fame by breaking news of China's first new SARS case of the season before Beijing announced it.
Press freedom activists criticized the prosecutions as a ploy to intimidate reporters.
And Chan is skeptical about whether the Youth Daily is ready to take on the responsibility of answering to outside investors.
"The market demands transparency," she said. "It's more than just raising capital. They have to be prepared for it, and I'm not sure how much they are prepared for it."
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