News coming out of the National News and Publication Management Working Conference 2009 is that China's General Administration of Press and Publication will issue a series of rules and regulations this year to strengthen supervision of reporters and journalists.
GAPP will work with the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security this year to draft a rule on the professional examination of journalists and a measure for the implementation of this rule with the hope of improving journalists' exposure to the market.
Li Dongdong, a deputy director of GAPP, told the media that GAPP would revise and publish the "News Journalist Certification Management Rule" to support the national move to change identification certification for journalists. Li said that GAPP would also set up a full database of reporters and journalists deemed to have been guilty of bad conduct, and people entered onto the list would be excluded from engaging in news reporting and editing work. Specifics on exactly what constitutes bad conduct were not available.
In addition, the report said that GAPP would issue a notice on regulating the appointment of managers to head news outlets and publications to strengthen the supervision of the management within the industry. Supervision of news journalists would be a major focus this year.
