Two new, interesting videos are currently up on Blue Ocean Network (BON) featuring host David Moser and guests Jeremy Goldkorn and Michael Anti discussing English Blogs About China. Both Part 1 and Part 2 are approximately 30-minute long streaming videos.
If you’re not familiar with BON, you’re not the only one. Apparently, however, it’s “a brand new, pioneering television network producing a wide range of objective English language content bringing the human side of China to homes across the Western world. BON goes live on air in Summer 2009 in the United States.” You can read more about them here.
I’ve personally never heard of David Moser but that’s probably because I spend too little time rubbing elbows with major figures in China academia and media and waste too much of my time slumming it at chinaSMACK . Apparently, Moser has even been a host for everyone’s favorite CCTV. Either way, he seems like a nice guy.
Jeremy Goldkorn and Michael Anti, however, are both names long-time China watchers are probably familiar with. South African Goldkorn is the founder of Danwei (Danwei.tv for those behind the GFW), one of the largest, oldest, and most influential English-language blogs covering China, updated multiple times a day with links to great reading as well as plenty of original content, including tons of excellent translations. Michael Anti is the Chinese journalist-blogger with the cool name, having worked for a number of known and reputable news organizations both domestic and foreign.
Reviewing the two part video took some time, as the videos often would not stream smoothly and happily, if at all. To help you decide if you want to try loading them up, I’ve included some of my notes from each part below the embedded videos here:
Part 1
Interesting Points:
- Goldkorn: SARS situation in 2003 and American political blogs helped inspire him to start Danwei, he felt there wasn’t enough English information available on China’s media to adequately reflect its “vibrancy and diversity”.
- Anti: China is so large that it is fragmented with influence only extending so far. “Internet is the first time in Chinese history we have a national community.”
- Anti: English blogs like Danwei and ESWN have a “two-direction effect” that benefits and “is crucial” for both English-readers and Chinese. Websites like these help the outside world better understand China and also help “make public” the Chinese voice. “If something isn’t written in English, it does not really exist in the world.”
- Anti: Bridge-blogging becoming bridge-tweeting.
- Moser: Questions the word “blog”. Is “blog” the right word? Or is “website” better because “blog” suggests “personal expression”. How should we refer to these “English blogs about China”?
- Moser: Brings up word “aggregator” and asks if ESWN’s content is Roland Soong’s own content or he just “translates and copies” other people’s material.
- Goldkorn: “Sex scandals, people doing disgusting things” and “scandalous” BBS comments are things chinaSMACK does well.
- Anti: Reference News translates English news into Chinese to help Chinese know more of how the outside world is looking at China.
- Moser: On blogs replacing the fourth estate, discusses downside of blogs not being vetted, being “wild”.
- Goldkorn: Says blogs and newspapers can both make mistakes, vetting or not, but reputation and trust is built up over time.
- Moser: Alludes to process journalism.
English Blogs About China Mentioned:
Part 2
Interesting Points:
- Goldkorn: On financing Danwei, they make “some” money on advertising, “a little more” on job advertising/recruitment advertising, and make “most” of their money on research services for corporate customers.
- Goldkorn: Says most people use blogs as “loss-leaders” to build influence and reputation for other things like consulting.
- Anti: Blogs cannot depend on advertising because of possibility of being blocked.
- Moser: Suggests that English blogs have “a certain immunity” because most of the audience is English and overseas.
- Goldkorn: While Moser and Anti discuss Anti-CNN, jokes about American nationalists being scarier than their Chinese counterparts.
- Goldkorn: “So difficult when discussing China in English to get the right mix”, referring to always being criticized by someone for writing critical or complimentary pieces about China.
- Anti: On power of new technology like Twitter, Kaiser Kuo tweeted about Xinjiang riots 1 hour before Xinhua English news reported about it.
- Anti: Described NYT’s “agenda” as being “weird” for himself and many Chinese people because Chinese people come from a “propaganda society” where the media is usually used to promote or inspire people to do things, “positive media report”, but the NYT and most foreign media is mostly “negative reporting”.
- Anti: On fact-checking: “Don’t trust anything until someone denies it.”
English Blogs About China Mentioned:
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Since chinaSMACK popped into the scene, other English China blogs have increasingly copied its formula of translating Chinese discussion forum news and content.
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As 2008 winds down to its last gasping breaths here in China, I look forward to 2009 with a mixture of relief and anticipation. Relief because 2008 has arguably...
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Kaiser Kuo speaks at TEDxHonolulu about the crisis in US-China relationships on a person-to-person level, exacerbated by large-scale and unmediated contact over the internet.
English China Blogs Increasingly Translate Chinese Forum Content 
English China Blogs To Watch In 2009 
Rednecks, Red Guards & Trolls: Kaiser Kuo on US-China Online 
I observed over at Danwei that I was surprised Jeremy didn’t accept the invitation to comment on the reasons for his site being blocked when Moser teed him up. Anti pleased me with his reference to the plethora of nationalistic wingnuts that infest blogs and newspapers whose articles deviate from the party line.
Glad someone finally made a post like this. I don’t know what BON is, but their in-browser video player has got to be the slowest-loading piece of sh*t I’ve seen on the internet in years.
Also, no one mentioned ChinaGeeks? Sadface. *off to translate twice as many things about racism!*
“off to translate twice as many things about racism”
I’ll stop by to restore some balance to the disequilibrium created by your resident fenqing.
Charles, I’ve been giving ChinaGeeks lots of love whenever asked what bridge blogs I like best (which is more often than one might think!). What, you haven’t been getting lots of unexpected traffic from Lincoln, Nebraska?
http://www.dailynebraskan.com/news/e-n-thompson-speaker-kaiser-kuo-describes-chinese-american-cyber-clash-1.1942147
http://www.pekingduck.org/2009/11/kaiser-kuo-on-chinas-internet/#comments
word. after 30 minutes of “buffering,” i’ve gotten about a half-second of what sounds like a snare drum. time to give up.
I never heard of Blue Ocean or David Moser either. And I don’t slum it in the chinaSMACK comment thread. :D
Hey, Kai, you know I left a Sanyo Xacti over at Min’s place that anyone associated with CNReviews can borrow and shoot video. We can just interview Custer to save him from his link-baiting techniques, not that racism isn’t an interesting topic!
No worries, I wasn’t actually going to do it. I’ve got plenty of other cool stuff coming up, no need for link-baiting flamewar starting racism posts (unless somethin’ crazy racist happens, in which case, game on!)
Why anyone takes Goldkorn seriously is mystifying. He hung around China long enough to be considered some sort of expert on China for God knows what reason. But if you read anything he has written for, say, The Guardian, it’s always just a list, a summary of what’s been in the news rewritten to make it seem like Goldkorn has a general view of what’s going on in China. Chinese media friends find him hilarious for his views.
When he gets the chance to explain or speculate about the issue of the blocking of his site, he has his eyes on the money–on the hope that he will be unblocked and advertising will increase. Danwei is not a news site but a platform for financial interests. So you get “Sexy Beijing” for a while because of the hits it generates, then Goldkorn takes it down because he is afraid of being shut down for porn. Lot of good that did.
As for Moser, it might have been good if he admitted at the outset of the interview that Goldkorn and he have a previous relationship, in that Goldkorn would post his writings. Now, Moser is paying him back.
Anti? Gimme a break. Gossip is what he trades in, and how that makes him some sort of media expert is equally mysterious. But at least he can read Chinese and does not need local staff to feed him material.
awww. ChinaHush was not mentioned.
China Briefing wasn’t mentioned either. It is more news based, but its a more serious business site and has original opinion. ChinaSMACK is little more than a slum. I also like the China/India focussed 2point6billion blog, that also has original commentary and a unique angle. Not wanting to push these particuarly, but I found the blogs mentioned to be rather low end in terms of their content. There are much better sites out there than the ones Danwei and Moser discussed.
Is there a reason why you’re using different names to repeatedly promote China Briefing? – Kai
And the reason that was, do you suppose–they did not talk about other sites? Because it was agreed which ones they would support by mentioning because their friends and associates run the ones they mentioned.
Blogging for Goldkorn is strictly a business, nothing more. It’s rather funny when people think that he is some sort of media guru or analyst of China. He is a shameless self-promoter. Look at all the mileage he has gotten out of his site being shut down.
Give it a few months and he’ll head somewhere else to make his name and fortune, having finally hit the ceiling in China.
Jeremy Goldkorn isn’t a good example of a successful media businessman in China. Danwei got blocked, and he’s not business savvy. Like Fregus I also question his credentials. Others out there have been in media for far longer and more successfully. China Briefing mentioned is a good example of a good business model, and the only blog to have progressed into publishing books as far as I know?
Is there a reason why you’re using different names to repeatedly promote China Briefing? – Kai
1. “Fregus” is one of the many pseudonyms of a nasty troll who originally called himself “SinaSource”.
Other names he uses are Shen Congwen, Anwar, Dale, Hubert, Fuller, Freland, Bill, Milward, Fillina, Slavo, Anony, Wang Shuguo, Shirly and Sidney.
His online writings betray his ignorance and are are often libelous.
I have a record of the IP addresses he has has used over the years, and various other pieces of information about him which I may one day put to some good use.
2. We mentioned many other blogs and touched on other subjects in the discussion, but they were left on the cutting room floor.
“We mentioned many other blogs and touched on other subjects in the discussion, but they were left on the cutting room floor.”
At last! The only possible explanation for omitting to mention Foundinchina*.
How’s that for shameless promotion?
* Foundinchina is a non-profit making organization that has no affiliation with China Briefing or a troll named Fregus.
HAHA. You people beefing over your little blogs.
LAME.
I know I’m a troll. (Probably my relatives knows I’m a troll, wouldn’t be surprised they read these crap english china blogs. I read them, I’m crap too I suppose. I don’t care, I’m shameless.)
SO WHAT?
Consequentially I’m already hated on so what does it matter?
Goldkorn keeping records I knew it.
Kai Pan:
You expend space and energy here to prove these (from Anti): (a) “two-direction effect”, (b)”help the outside world better understand China”, and (c) “If something isn’t written in English, it does not really exist in the world.”
But, what’s there to “better understand”? What “two-directional effect” is there when the proof of existence is dependent purely on it written in the English language? All is framed to the Western mind. Reason (c) illustrates perfectly the point here: Anglo-Saxon conceit, and this says much about the likes of Goldkorn et al.
China exists as a contradiction to the Western world. It could have been India but India is too mired in the “world’s largest democracy” to hold itself up, the minds of its “intellectuals” stuffed with so much of the remnants of Hobbes, Locke and so on. Imagine an Indian prime minister speaking to the world in Hindi or Gujarati? After that, imagine a Deng Xiaoping speaking in English to the world. The Chinese doesn’t want to. The May Fourth Culture is dead; so get over it.
Yet Danwei, ChinaGeeks, etc. appoint themselves to do the job of the Chinese prime minister talking to the world. Avarind Adiga is correct: such thinking is so yesterday. Bottom line: Goldkorn, et al., like you, want to make money out of China. And to do that manufacture all kinds of justifications (typically of some grand, ethical, political kind – “two-directional”, human rights, racism, etc). But the Chinese mind is different in the English, so that if they are going to offer “better understanding”, then drop the conceit and go back to school to read 唐詩三百首, in Chinese.
@ Hanren: We have no interest in being the Chinese prime minister. We just are interested in China, and feel that more people would understand China a bit better if they could see more of the discourse that’s hidden to them because they can’t read 唐诗三百手.
You claim to know that everyone who blogs about China is in it to “make money off China” is as ignorant as it is offensive. While many of us do aspire to make some money (after all, eating is important, or so I keep hearing), the vast majority of China bloggers, including me and (I suspect) the CNReviews guys too, do it for pretty much no money at all, with little to no hope of money coming in the future.
We have been to school and can read Chinese, and now we’re using those abilities to help others catch up and see a little piece of what China is today rather than basing their opinions on Bruce Lee movies. Is that really a bad thing?
ChinaGeeks: “We have no interest in being the Chinese prime minister.” No interest? Even if you were, you’ll be no match for the job – not in a hundred life times. Nowhere in my comment does it speak of “interest”. The exact line: you “appoint (your)self to do the job of the Chinese prime minister talking to the world.” Spot the difference.
ChinaGeeks: because of you “more people would understand China” because they can’t read 唐诗三百手. Goldkorn and the likes of you may be able to read, nominally, the 唐诗三百手, but look at what you pass on at your websites? Intellectual trash. Besides, Chinese reading ability does not necessarily equal comprehension and appreciation, cultural, political, etc. Know why?
ChinaGeeks: saying that I “claim to know that everyone….” Where is that “claim to know” phrase or inference, and where is the word, “everyone”? My exact phrase is, “Goldkorn, et al., like you, want to make money out of China.” It also does not say, “in it (blogging) to make money off China”. There’s a difference in nuance; would you know what?
Contradiction: You reaffirm my point – “aspire to make some money” – but then declare there’s “little to no hope of money coming in…” Poor you: desire chasing after the unreal. The desire in your motive remains, and that’s the point regardless of the present or future fulfillment of the wish or whether you eat or don’t. It’s your motive, ultimately, that’s in question and which you’ve answered.
Contradiction: In one breath you allude to making money as “offensive”, then in another you justify its necessity, to eat. Thus: necessity becomes virtuous, and being offensive is a virtue. What do Americans say of such double-talk: forked-tongue? Also, if money is the justification for anything or all things, why not rob a bank?
ChinaGeeks: “we’re using those (Chinese language?) abilities to help others catch up and see a little piece of what China is today rather than basing their opinions on Bruce Lee movies.” This is the kind of speech that reaffirms a thrust of my argument: approaching matters from (1) Anglo-Saxon conceit, and (2) condescension, talking down to others as people with only a Bruce Lee intellect, watching Bruce Lee movies whereas you are… what? In the part of China where I have home, most people I know have no conception of Bruce Lee types you talk to. Anyway, who appointed you as spokesperson, even to Bruce Lee fans?
ChinaGeeks: you blog for “little to no hope of money”. This is superego massaged as selfless generosity and altruism, out-sizing all other egos one comes across.
I shall restate my argument: With the likes of Goldkorn and you, the so-called “understanding” that you disseminate are perceptions and ideas, virtually all banalities, that are erroneously worse off than if people previously had little or no understanding. Imagine thus, thousands of the watchers of Bruce Lee movies turning to idiots for illumination about China not only because they don’t see the idiots for what they are but mostly because they didn’t know any better. And the daily doses of noxious output from you, Goldkorn, et al, is distortion after distortion that grow farther and farther away from the reality in China. “Is that,” you asked, “really a bad thing? Bad for you? Who cares. Bad for China? Of course not: China and its laobaixing are too well grounded in and by its culture to be influenced by facile exercises in Sisyphean futility. Bad for readers? Yes, of course, when fed with pig trash.
Another part in the argument, again to restate, is that the Chinese mind is different from those who read it from the outside or expresses it in the English, even for those equally competent in both languages. Your comments lead me to doubt your ability in all. In this regard, the CNN types are representative fools. These types, much like you, deliver all discourses from an Anglo-Saxon mental frame of thought without which they can’t talk or report. Even in the English, they can’t get it right, much less reading and then translating Chinese thoughts or actions out of the native language. Error after error and contradictions in your comments are proof of the distortions derived from widespread intellectual incompetence, blighted cultural knowledge, half-baked language skills and reasoning ineptitude, all of which China bloggers in English are infamous for.
No; you, Goldkorn, et al, are the arrogant class, haughty because you are ignorant, making pretence to be some sort of “China expert” simply because others, you assume, don’t know better – the Bruce Lee class. Hence, you can’t stand to be corrected, especially about China and especially in your English. You are recommended to go back to the school primer 唐诗三百手 because you don’t know what you don’t know. You’ve to re-educate yourself, but then … after five more readings you still might not get it. That’s why the Chinese talk of life’s comprehension in stages, when one is at age 30, 40, and so on. Know the source of that insight? Wager that you don’t.
Still interested in China? Take 14 days off from your America, Canada or wherever, buy a Christmas return ticket, preferably from a Chinese airline, spend US$4,000 (whore prices included), finish your 5-city tour, go home and not a day late, then return next year with inflation-adjusted US$4,400. No money? Try Visa card; I read they hand it out with no collateral down. And, please, when posting of your “China experience” stop whining over a 5 yuan (US$0.70) overcharge on the cab fare. Consider the extra as your (anonymous) altruism in China’s interests. That and your US$4,000 shall be, in the true White Christian spirit, putting your money where your interests lay.
“I shall restate my argument…”
There was an argument?
Yeah, I’m the arrogant one.
*shaking head*
You don’t know me, or anything about my life or motivations. Many of the assumptions you make in your comment are wrong.
If you’re interested in the subject, but from a different angle, the China Internet Forum is on 18th November, in Beijing, details on that are here: http://www.ce-internetforum.com. It includes the following speakers:
Jinji LI, CEO of 3G.pp.cn
Haoyu SHEN, Vice President of Business Operations of Baidu
Forest ZHANG, Founder and CEO of Tixa.com
Wayne SHIONG, Partner of WI Harper Group
David ROBERTS, Partner of O’Melveny & Myers
Norbert CHANG, Vice President and Managing Director of Disney Interactive Media Group (DIMG)
James MI, Managing Director of Lightspeed Venture Partners
Bill LI, Managing Director of Walden International
Allen WANG, Chairman and CEO of Baby Tree
David LI, Director of Intel Capital China
Tom WAN, Vice President of Soho Square
Zhigao LI, Chairman and CEO of TMG, Deputy Director for China Internet Association
Registration contact details are: Elsa at elsa@ce-online.cn
Hope thats useful. (No I don’t work for them, I just posted here for your info as it seems related)
Oh, the irony.
stuart is right, there is no argument, he’s just trolling, and I have a pretty good idea of who it is judging by the MO. I’m just wondering if I should delete it or leave it up for everyone to appreciate the hypocrisy and irony of his criticisms. I hope he’ll indulge us with more. I really do, or at least until he starts spamming.
If you have a blog and talk about bloggers, it’ll always end up full of trash talk and rubbishing each other. Lets not kid ourselves that blogging is nothing but a very low form of “journalism” with no journalistic credentials, ethics or censorship practiced.
Discussions about blogging is pure hot air about hot air.