People’s Daily, the Communist Party of China’s official newspaper, plans to build China’s first national newspaper museum, an effort to strengthen its influence in China’s media industry.
“The development of the newspaper industry reflects China’s political and cultural progress. Many people have thought about building a national newspaper museum, but none have been successful so far,” Qian Jiang, head of the preparation office of the museum, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
The newspaper museum will be in the new office building of People’s Daily, which broke ground in May last year and is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2012.
The establishment of the museum has received support from authorities.
Except for the necessary license, the preparation works include a collection of newspaper relics, general design of the museum and a written outline of the exhibits.
Earlier this month, Qian and his team invited museum professionals to give lectures on museum management.
They also toured museums in Beijing to get a better understanding of operations.
“We were warmly received by professionals at all museums we have visited so far,” Qian said. “And we learned a lot.”
The preparation office will soon set up its official website, blog and microblog to reach people interested in the project, according to Qian.
Qian, a senior journalist and author of nine books relating to China’s modern history, was deputy chief editor of the Overseas Edition of People’s Daily before he was appointed as the chief of the preparation office earlier this month.
Ping Pong Diplomacy, A Secret War – China and Vietnam’s Anti-French War and Deng Xiaoping and Sino-US Relations are his three representative titles.
He wrote and published two books on the history of People’s Daily in 2008, Records of People’s Daily in 1946-48 and The Birth of People’s Daily in 1948-49.
These two books established Qian’s status as the expert on the paper’s early history.
Global Times