Ming Pao (明報, pinyin: ming2pao4), a Chinese language newspaper, is a publication by the Ming Pao Group in Hong Kong.
Ming Pao, founded by the famous Chinese martial novelist Jinyong (originally named Cha Liangyong), was first published on May 20 1959. It aims at providing comprehensive and accurate reports on political and economic issues in both mainland China and Hong Kong. The Mingpao Group has published a number of newspapers and magazines. It has also set up a website providing news and information to the public. Well-known for its accuracy in language, many secondary schools in Hong Kong encourage their students to subscribe Mingpao in order to improve their Chinese language.
Mingpao Group also runs magazines called Ming Pao Weekly, Ming Pao Monthly, and Yazhou Zhoukan (jointly owned with TOM), publications which get good reputation among the society.
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2 Style 3 Newspaper Contents 4 Reader Groups 5 Achievements 6 Website 7 Ming Pao in overseas 8 External links |
Ming Pao's style is somehow conservative compared with other newspapers and its previous style. Some people treat it as a paper that pro-Beijing as Ming Pao is less critical than Apple Daily. Instead of the shocking headlines, Ming Pao prefers to use moderate wording and seems not to be so aggressive. Thus, citizens find its reports to be fair and neutral. Compared with Apple Daily, Ming Pao seldom uses the entertainment news like the news of the artists to be the headings.
However, in recent years, probably because of the trend of "infotainment" among many local and overseas media, Ming Pao reports some news in a soft way which means the reporting tones of headlines and contents are less serious in some news than before. This is said to be a trend of most news group and it is inevitable as sensational news and headlines tend to attract readers and boost up readership. However, Ming Pao insists on being honest and responsible to readers. It is well-known for reporting facts only and it avoids posting exaggerated bloody photographs that are unpleasant to readers, especially children.
Some Hong Kong people claimed that Ming Pao in the past was so opinionated and tended to pronounce its views on sensitive issues, but now the paper seems to be more "neutral". Such changes could be explained by the pressure Beijing long put on Hong Kong's media as well as the stable political situation in both China and Hong Kong compared with the past. But the truth is, the free press in Hong Kong is changing of its own free will.
Mr. Kao Hsin-chiang, Ming Pao’s editorial director, said that Hong Kong people needed to understand China better, to sympathize more and judge less. He also declared that Ming Pao wanted Hong Kong and Chinese interests to reach a balance, so it had to find that balance.
"A newspaper is a trumpet expressing the views of the boss." Louis Cha said in his early forty and such motto was recorded in a book "Jinyong and Newspaper" of a famous journalist. It is realized that the success of a newspaper does relate to the style, the stand point and the reputation it built. To have an in-depth understanding on how Ming Pao builds successfully, to know the overlap of Ming Pao's and Louis Cha's style is of the utmost importance. Generally, the values they merged could be classified in the following aspects:
At the beginning, the original focuses of Ming Pao, built on the four values listed above, were the public interests, Chinese martial novel, and its unpopular style with clear and insisted political view to against the left-wingers. It is not hard to reveal its covered values from the chinese martial novel to the editorial which often debates with the other newspapers. For example, its editorial monitored by Louis Cha had come to a debate with Ta Kung Pao(大公報) in concerning about the issue of refugee in 1964. Through the impacts of years as well as the unpredicted political changes of China, the clear and firm position of Ming Pao brought a high reputation from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. With its explicit and admirable values suiting the society of Hong Kong where holds freedom as reverence and be the gate of China, Ming Pao, therefore, has been regarded as an independent and intelligentsia"s newspaper from its earlier development to now.
Due to the changes of the society, the style of Ming Pao has also been adjusted in order to fit the social needs. As mentioned in Stand Point, Ming Pao has now used a relatively soft and moderate title instead of the one before. It puts a question here that: Is Ming Pao values denatured? The answer is: Even Ming Pao is now being moderate and less aggressive, its existed and foreseeable development are still built on the traditional values, which are the elements brought Ming Pao to success.
See also: Media digest
Like other newspapers in Hong Kong, Ming Pao offers the readers various types of information like the local, Chinese and Taiwan,the international news, sports news, entertainment news and editorials. In the leisure sessions, it contains a lot of information which is educational and able to guide you to travel. There is a column that allows writers to post their articles on it.
However, one big difference between Ming Pao and other Hong Kong best selling newspapers, such as Oriental Daily, Apple Daily and Sun Daily is that Ming Pao does have much advertisements. In the three newspapers mentioned above, there is usually a pile of pages on promotion of supermarkets, but this thing does not happen in Ming Pao.
The graphic design of the templates of Mingpao is much less plainer than the other major newspapers. When flipping the pages, it can be discovered that the pages are in plain style.
In 1997, Ming Pao is modernized both inside and outside. It introduced Hong Kong’s most sophisticated Chinese-language publishing system and began using oversize color photos and ample “white space” to create a friendlier feel.The news is softened and more entertainment news is added.This aimed to appeal to young readers.
Besides, to keep pace with the changing environment that soccer gambling has been regularized in Hong Kong, Ming Pao has added the section of soccer betting news. The paper offers the readers a comprehensive information of football gambling. However, unlike other mainstream papers, Ming Pao only provides the information of soccer gambling which is in charge by the Hong Kong Jockey Club. The gambling held by overseas (like Macau) agencies will not appear in Ming Pao, but in other popular papers.
A highly reputated section of Ming Pao is the educational section. It teaches readers a lot of rightness of living. It regularly discusses English grammatical mistakes which are commonly made by Hong Kong people. In the life education section, a lot of useful life-management skills, such as anxiety-relieving skills, time and financial management skills, child-bearing skills and emotional management skills are taught. It could highly facilitate a better life of readers.
According to Ming Pao, its main reader groups are the middle classes, professionals, managers and corporate decision-makers. They are groups of generally higher income and eduction levels, making them a very important group in Hong Kong.
Besides, Ming Pao is one of the most favourite newspapers among educational institutions. The schools often list Ming Pao as the compulsory newspaper subscription. And they will offer special discount for students in order to enourage them to subscribe and read more newspaper . The subscription price is just as low as about $2, while the usual selling price of a Hong Kong newspaper is $6.
According to the surveys conducted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1997, 1998 and 2001, Ming Pao is regarded as the most reliable newspaper in Hong Kong. Moreover, it won the "2002 Awards For Editorial Excellence" of The Society of Publishes in Asia and the "Hong Kong Best News Award" for the last 11 years.
These achievements indicate that the good quality of publication and excellent report of Ming Pao is well recognized by its contemporaries in the industry.
The homepage of Ming Pao was set up in 1995, one of the earliest newspaper websites in Hong Kong. (See below.) Meanwhile, it won the "Ten Health Websites Contest 2002" of the Televison and Entertainment Licensing Authority, at which mere two news' websites from the whole media society in Hong Kong have won this award, revealing its good and stable quality on both internet and among newspapers.
Mingpao's webiste contains not only news but also many other contents. They can be divided into 12 categories, including:
In 1993, the Hong Kong daily Ming Pao launched its first North American edition in Toronto and Vancouver. At that time, it was the third Chinese newspaper at the two countries after the release of Sing Tao and the Journal. Throughout its 37-year history, Ming Pao has catered to the wealthy, educated elite, so it quickly attracted the attention of educated, affluent Hong Kong immigrants. In the following years after its first publication, about 100,000 Chinese-language newspapers are sold daily. Sing Tao is the best seller, with approximately 40,000 copies. Ming Pao came the second, with about 35,000 readers while The Journal is third with 25,000.
Most of the staff and editorial workers at Ming Pao are journalism graduates and are educated abroad. They have their writing and reporting style which are very different from that of Hong Kong editors. For instance, staffs are encouraged to report from the perspective of a Chinese-Canadian as they want to educate their readers to live peacefully with people from different backgrounds in Canada. Moreover, when they write, it’s important not to take sides. Readers need to know the facts of an event to make their own mind up. Thus, covering mainstream and Chinese society using only facts is considered to be very challenging for them.
Moreover, the paper has no editorials, but it has a commentary column called "People's Talk," which runs Monday to Saturday. In this space, senior editorial staffers write about issues such as the referendum.
The reason why Ming Pao does not have editorials is the lack of staff to write them.”We don't want to write editorials in a loose way," Vivian Chong, the news editor of Ming Pao said. Chong thought that writing the editorials the content needs to be in an analytical, comprehensive manner. But many of the staff are not very familiar with the local issues, a lot of time has to go into research for editorials. So at the moment, Ming Pao is trying to help readers establish and familiarize with local issues in Canada first.
Overall, Ming Pao has become famous for its three weekly, glitzy and colourful magazine supplements, which even entice some Sing Tao and Journal readers to jump ship. They are the Ming Pao Property Gold Pages, a real estate buyer's guide which includes analyses of the property market, stories on mortgages, Canadian real estate law and interior design and a monthly Chinese-language edition of Toronto Life.
Ming Pao Daily News, a subsidiary of Ming Pao Enterprise Corporation Limited, is committed to serving the Chinese American population. The cities in USA that have Ming Pao publication in New York, Long Island, Boston, Philadephia and Seattle. the Readership is about 135,000 per day. Ming Pao daily comprises a high readership profile of "high income/education professionals", which are also the target readers in Hong Kong.
Ming Pao Daily News offers headline news in the US, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and other Asian countries. Other content includes financial section with the latest stock market quotes and investment figures, entertainment news, lifestyle, community activities and events, in either Chinese or English sections.
See also:
Stand Point
Style
These values determined the initial direction as well as the consolidated foundation of Ming Pao.Newspaper Contents
Reader Groups
Achievements
Website
Ming Pao in overseas
Ming Pao in Canada
Ming Pao in USA
External links