China’s media has come a long way since the 1950s, when its main objective was showcasing the country’s progress toward a socialist utopia. Today it’s more savvy and commercial, with journalists doing real investigative work that sometimes challenges the official line. But other parts of the media apparatus have largely remained the same.

In today’s episode we look at how China’s media has evolved, explore what motivates Chinese journalists and try to peek inside the shadowy Xinhua News Agency. Joining us are former Reuters journalist Doug Young, who’s a media professor at Fudan University and the author of The Party Line: How The Media Dictates Public Opinion in Modern China and Newsweek correspondent and author of Getting Rich First: Life in a Changing China, Duncan Hewitt, who teaches journalism and Chinese media at New York University’s Shanghai center.

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