A Research Of Metropolitan Newspapers’ Credibility Crisis And Countermeasures

Since1990s when metropolitan newspapers appeared in China, they have been hailed gradually by readers and been an important part of China’s mass media. Being close to life and having flexible management, they play a leading role in news groups in China. They is also regarded by the academic circle as "the most sustainable, robust, worthwhile and influential newspaper in China."[Tong Bing,"On re-starting business of Chinese metropolitan newspaper", Shanghai Journalism Review, Volume4,2005]However, when the newspapers make great profits, they also frequently bring false news and illegal advertisements due to mixed qualifications of their staff and signally pursuing economic benefits, which seriously result in the loss of readers’ benefits. Apart from that, some metropolitan newspapers frequently keep silence and reduce coverage in some important news events, weakening readers’ trust toward them. All these problems that cannot be ignored have challenged the newspapers’ credibility day by day and plunged the newspapers into a crisis of credibility, which will restrict the newspapers’ further development.It’s the fact that arising and promising Web media and new media technologies including mobile phone and microblog gradually have seized metropolitan newspapers’ market shares. For example, the income and circulation of the newspapers have increased slowly and even declined in recent years. In terms of agenda setting of public topics, new media performs much better than traditional newspapers. In the press circle, opinions that newspaper faces depression and will disappear could be heard everywhere. Obviously, the metropolitan newspapers are facing unprecedented surviving crisis.The key method to curb the crisis is to improve the credibility of the metropolitan newspapers in a bid to win more trust from the public. Though paper media has gradually fallen, there is still larger space for the metropolitan newspapers since vulgar online news and successive rumors spreading in microblog have brought great troubles to the audience to obtain information and access to the truth in spite of their speedy spreading and easy reading. Thus, the public need authoritative media to help them judge information. Therefore, it’s time for metropolitan newspapers to take action to make full use their credibility. The author tries to further analyze the situations of the credibility of the metropolitan newspapers and indicates the fact that these newspapers are facing a crisis of credibility. Meanwhile, the author finds out the problems leading to the crisis based on seeking to internal and external reasons and points out negative influences brought by the crisis to the newspaper and the whole society. And the author also reveals methods to improve credibility of the metropolitan newspapers and main stream newspapers. The author cites the Qingdao-based Bandao News as an example to explain the mentioned opinions. More facts could be kindly found in the thesis analyzing the opinions from diversified angels and making them more vivid and solid.The thesis falls into the following parts:Introduction; Chapter One involving the whole situations of metropolitan newspapers; Chapter Two analyzing the causes leading to the crisis of the newspapers; Chapter Three noting necessity and urgency of improving the newspapers’ credibility; Chapter Four indicating the methods to improve the credibility of the newspapers; Chapter Five citing successful experiences of the Bandao News.