Chris Brauer is guest on Chinese TV current affairs program

Filed under: Research

Smoothmedia Director Chris Brauer appeared on Chinese national television on August 8, 2010 to speak about leaked documents on the whistleblower website Wikileaks. Chris joined Mr. Shuja Nawaz, Director of the South Asia Center at The Atlantic Council of the United States and Mr. Shi Anbin, professor of Media and Cultural Studies at Tsinghua University in a fast moving international panel discussion.

It was a very unique and interesting experience appearing on CCTV (China Central Television) to discuss the Wikileaks release of the Afghan War Diary. The modern format of current affairs news program World Insight with the presenter Tian Wei standing in front of a green screen and regularly breaking into the discussion was refreshing.

In an unusual move the broadcaster supplied the lead-in and nine questions in advance and it was surprising to see so many questions dealing directly with the key controversial issues regarding Wikileaks. But when the live broadcast actually started the questions were completely different and far less direct. Whether this was related to the fact that Wikileaks is a highly controversial topic and banned in China is unclear but the entire interview was still very energised and promising for the future of Chinese media.