Ding Guangen, the top publicity official of Chinese Communist Party urged the country's 550,000 journalists to adhere to the basic principles of the Party and "firmly grasp the correct guidance of public opinion" at a gathering Wednesday celebrating China's first Journalists' Day.
Ding is a member of the Political Bureau and member of the Secretariat of 15th CPC Central Committee, as well as head of Publicity Department of CPC Central Committee.
He said journalists and news media have contributed a great deal to the Chinese revolution and the construction causes after New China was founded in 1949.
Ding, on behalf of the CPC Central Committee, conveyed greetings to the working journalists, and saluted those retired for their efforts in flourishing the country's news and publicity cause.
Faced with the new times and new situations, the broad masses of journalists must be in strict agreement with the CPC Central Committee with President Jiang Zemin at the core and hold high the banner of Deng Xiaoping's Theory, Ding told the gathering of more than 700 journalists at the Great Hall of People.
"Journalists should keep abreast of the times and the people," he said.
The pace of reforming and developing the news industry should be sped up to win the public and the market under the strengthened leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, Ding stressed.
"The buildup of the news contingent must be advanced further to make correspondents faithful recorders of the progress of our times and contribute to the economic and cultural progress of the country," he said.
Journalists' Day, set for November 8, is a work-as-usual holiday, just like the country's Teachers' Day and Nurses' Day, when they have to work on their posts.
The date was chosen because on November 8, 1937, the China Young Journalists Association was founded by left-wing reporters headed by well-known journalist Fan Changjiang in Shanghai.
The establishment of Journalists' Day is expected to encourage all Chinese journalists to carry forward the fine traditions of their profession and continue to make great strides in this area.
Officials from central government departments, national news organizations and the All-China Journalists Association attended the gala. Also invited as a VIP to the meeting was a veteran journalist and writer Israel Epstein, a former American correspondent and now a Chinese citizen.
(Xinhua 11/08/2000)
