Live streaming brightens up reports on China’s two sessions

The People’s Daily new media center. (Photo by Li Ge from People’s Daily)

By Yang Xun from People’s Daily

China’s mainstream media have applied popular live-streaming culture and technology to reporting the “two sessions” to send first-hand information about the important political event to the public in a timely manner.

The two sessions, the annual sessions of the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the top political advisory body, kicked off over the weekend in Beijing.

The new media center of the People’s Daily recently launched a live-streaming platform to offer the latest meeting agendas to audiences nationwide, while Xinhua News Agency and CCTV also unveiled similar programs.

The innovative attempt by the media came after an explosion of live streaming in 2016. The booming online apps mostly provided entertainment content, and disturbing scenes, speculation, fraud and other chaos has cast a shadow over the industry.

Amid such a backdrop, the launch by the media of their platforms will be a turning point since they will give live-streaming more weight in the media ecosystem and will build up a cleaner industry environment.

The People’s Daily new media center is ready to broadcast two sessions updates on March 3, 2017. (Photo by Yang Xun from People’s Daily)

Shouldering more social responsibilities, the media platforms will report more on objective information and hard news.

Thanks to the application of new technologies, the public can get access to the latest information about the two sessions, and other political agendas in a more timely and convenient fashion.

The People’s Daily Online, for instance, introduced a 100-hour-plus live program to broadcast the real-time meeting by teaming up with Tencent’s video site. Starting from Friday, the program updated the core meeting agendas and offered reports from on-site journalists everyday.

A reporter with Guangming Online carrying an almost 15-kilogram “Iron Man” multichannel live broadcast cloud platform outside the two sessions. (Photo from WeChat account)

High-end talks, authoritative comments on the agendas, titbits and video clips about the meetings were aired as well.

Reporters have upgraded their live-streaming equipment as well, including a 15-kilogram wearable broadcasting monster built by Guangming Online.

The “Iron Man” multichannel live broadcast cloud platform is an omnimedia reporting device which can aid a single reporter in collecting and publishing information via video, panorama and virtual reality. The wearable system consists of multiple smartphones, tablets and cameras and can replace a whole team to collect and broadcast video and virtual reality content.