Newspapers face major reshuffle

The government
announced that six major newspaper groups have been chosen to carry out pilot projects
for structural reforms of the industry, South China Morning Post reported. The groups
selected include Xinhua Daily Group, which will explore ways to fos-ter healthy competition
among dailies in Nanjing. Beijing Youth Daily. which will look into diversifying sources of
revenue, and Henan Daily Group, which will focus on developing a distitbution network in
central and western provinces.
Pilot projects are an established way of initiating
change. Under a 1996 pilot scheme, Guangzhou Daily became the first to form a
newspaper group. There are now 36 newspaper groups in China.