Tuesday, 10 November 2009
Magazine’s new team face uphill battle to maintain standards
Caijing magazine’s new editorial team will have a tough job maintaining quality and regaining the confidence of readers and advertisers following the departure of its founder, Hu Shuli, along with most of the staff of its business and editorial operations.
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Magazine’s new team face uphill battle to maintain standards
Al Guo and Raymond Li
10 November 2009
Caijing magazine’s new editorial team will have a tough job maintaining quality and regaining the confidence of readers and advertisers following the departure of its founder, Hu Shuli, along with most of the staff of its business and editorial operations.
Hu submitted her resignation yesterday to the magazine’s parent company, the Stock Exchange Executive Council, but SEEC had a backup team led by two veteran business news editors ready to take over.
The new team - headed by Zhao Li, chief editor of the weekly financial newspaper Investor Journal, and his news editor, He Gang - had tested two trial issues relying mostly on articles by Investor Journal staff, and the SEEC was satisfied with their quality, according to sources.
But it would take many more issues to see if the team could perform as well as the one which has departed, sources said. Caijing built its fame and strength around a management team mostly hand-picked by Hu and about 200 reporters who competed for limited space in the biweekly magazine.
As soon as speculation about Hu’s possible resignation began to circulate in late September following the departure of business manager Wu Chuanhui and about 70 employees, the SEEC, headed by former Wall Street banker Wang Boming, contacted Zhao and He to develop a backup plan, sources said.
Zhao and He agreed to help run Caijing, and Wang had shown an interest in buying out Investor Journal to clear any potential obstacles preventing Zhao and He from running the magazine. Investor Journal’s main sponsor is Hunan TV and Broadcasting Intermediary, and the newspaper’s management team and the Economic Observer newspaper are also believed to be minority shareholders.
As for Caijing’s popular news website, the SEEC plans to let its own financial news website, hexun.com, take over if most of Caijing’s reporters follow Hu.
Dai Xiaojing, the deputy head of the SEEC, took over from Wu and installed his own people in key business positions. The November edition of Caijing did not see a decrease in advertising.
“I’d say Caijing magazine will be OK no matter what,” Dai said.
Professor Huang Yu at Baptist University said Hu had played an important role at Caijing, and her departure meant the professionalism with which she had run the publication and the magazine’s momentum were gone.
“Despite its status, it has yet to enter a stage where it could hang in there with the same style without Hu, especially since it was a massive [staff] walkout,” Huang said.
“Without Hu, Caijing could end up being just like any other magazine.”
Shi Aiyun, a long-time Caijing reader, said she would give the new editorial team the benefit of the doubt for the first few issues. “I hope the new team can keep up the magazine’s quality and exclusivity in reporting. Otherwise, I don’t see why readers should stick to the magazine merely for the sake of the name.”
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