Think of "never thought of"

Party General Secretary Hu Jintao inspected the People's Daily office in Beijing on June 20. On that day, Reuters released on its Chinese website a front-page article titled "What do you (usually) do on the internet Mr. President?" The article notes that Chinese President Hu Jintao answered questions in his online debut last Friday on the website of People's Daily (www. people. com. cn), the Communist Party's mouthpiece. Thus, he became the nation's first leader to participate in an online chat with netizens.

Meanwhile, BBC, the Agence France-Presse (AFP) and other media organs have also given their prominent reportages of General Secretary Hu's inspection of the People Daily and his online chat with netizens at the official website. What merits attention, however, is that a lot of overseas media reports use such words "unexpected" and "never thought of".

In the People's Daily office where I work, the greatest focus or the most heated topic these days is of course the Party General Secretary's inspection of the leading newspaper's work, which represents a major event and a joyous occasion. As I have heard more and more of my colleagues talk about it, I find out that the phrase "never thought of" are the three Chinese characters with the highest use frequency in their conversations.

Night desk editors: "We've never thought that the General Secretary will inquire after us in such detail. It occurs to us that he is quite acquainted with the special character and performance of our work."

Tibet-based reporters: "We've never thought the General Secretary has paid such a loving care for us stationed reporters in areas with rough, tough conditions."

PD commentators: "We've never thought that the General Secretary is so familiar with the brand of commentator's article, and pay so high expectations on the work of People's Daily commentators."

Why everyone say that he or she has "never thought of"? In a panel discussion, one colleague hit the point: "This is a loving care and an inspiration shown for us, and it is all the more expectation and great trust reposed in us, which fully embodies the General Secretary's kind attention to journalists and his anticipation of the Party's press publicity work.

The People's Daily, as the organ of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, has all along drawn attention and loving care from several generations of CPC leaders, who have regarded the business of Party newspapers as a vital, crucial component part of the Party's entire cause. It is precisely owing to such attention and loving care that General Secretary Hu has all along given heed and rendered support to the development of the cause of the Party newspapers and the maturing of the ranks of Party paper workers."

Such attention and loving care have reminded the Party's newsmen not to forget their mission and responsibilities. This is where lies the motive force for the continuous, forward advance of the People's Daily, which has traversed a six-decade course of development .

Tremendous changes have occurred in our environment six decades later today. The scientific outlook on development, which is meant "to put people first", requires us to respect all the more the principal status of the masses of people; the penetrating, in-depth social changes now make the media guidance of public opinions even more difficult and arduous; the diversified and target-oriented media trend has spurred us to hasten the shaping of a new pattern of media guidance of public opinions.

With a new situation emerging, an imminent, pressing task placed before us is how to enrich the contents and innovate the forms of news reporting, and how to facilitates media guidance having a clear aim and raising actual effects, and how to enhance the media guidance of public opinions.