Hong Kong, April 27 (CNA) Dubbed by Business magazine as "the most dangerous woman in China," prominent Chinese journalist Hu Shuli told the international media Tuesday that she is back in Chinese media circles and hopes, through a new venture, to achieve the goal of independent news reporting in China.
Less than six months Hu left "Caijing, " an influential and profitable business magazine founded by her in China in 1998, she has established "Caixin Media." The new enterprise will be as "outspoken, critical and professional" as before, she told around 300 media workers and international politics experts in a keynote speech at the 2010 International Media Conference organized by the U.S. East-West Center.
"Our future should be in our own hands, " said Hu, 56, who was forced to resign from Caijing last fall amid government anger over the magazine's exposure of a series of scandals in China's stock market and its criticism of the Chinese administration as incompetent.
Her insistence on holding the authorities accountable and on sticking to recognized journalistic standards was supported by almost 200 journalists and employees at Caijing who resigned when she did.
With the establishment of Caixin Media, Hu said, she now envisions a bigger future.
"Political influence and commercial interests should and will be kept out of Caixin Media," she stressed.
The enterprise publishes two Chinese-language magazines, Century Weekly and China Reform, as well as the English-language Caixin Digest.
It also hosts a Web site (www.caing.com) and offers mobile content and electronic magazine subscriptions. It links to online social networks such as Facebook and Twitter for better communication with its readers, according to Hu.
In an era when the media world has changed because of TV, the Internet and mobile devices, Hu said, she is seeking to pursue independent journalism in China via a multimedia platform.
She said that although the traditional media in China, especially newspapers and magazines, is still on the rise, she has decided that her new business should take on the bigger challenge of competing with well-known international media.
"I hope we can find a new business model to catch up with the times before it's too late, " she said.
Asked about her relationship with the Chinese government, Hu described it as "up and down, back and forth." However, she has not given up hope, she said.
She noted that among China's 400 million Internet users, 80 percent of them listed reading news as their favorite online activity as opposed to 20 percent in the Western world.
"All we need to do is grasp the opportunities and never give up," she said. "I don't worry much about difficulties. I always prefer to look for opportunities." Responded to reporters' questions on tight governmental control of the Chinese media, Hu said she doesn't think the media in China is still an instrument of the state.
The Chinese media is now more diversified, especially in the Internet-dominated news market, she said.
"You cannot say there is only one voice (in China), " she added.
Hu's choice of career was in the footsteps of her mother who was a senior editor at Workers' Daily in China. Her father worked in a trade union.
She was awarded the 2003 International Editor of the Year by the World Press Review, and the 2007 Louis Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism by the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University. In May 2008, the U.S. magazine Foreign Policy named her as one of the top 100 public intellectuals in the world. (By Chris Wang) enditem /pc