Sixth Tone
www.sixthtone.com
Sixth Tone is an online publication that produces informed and insightful content on contemporary China. Like an additional tone to the five of Mandarin Chinese, Sixth Tone offers a new voice to coverage of China, placing the emphasis on the human element of every story. Through in-depth features, up-to-the-minute reports on emerging issues, and illuminating contributions from guest writers, Sixth Tone seeks to uncover what China’s most pressing issues and news mean for real Chinese people.

Not that there's anything wrong with it. However it gets posted here often (I've even posted some it's articles myself) so i think we outta do our due diligence of media criticism.

Sixth Tone is owned by the Shanghai United Media Group which is overseen by the Shanghai committee of the Chinese Communist Party.

It's published in English and is intended for a western audience. This reminds me of other government media organizations like DW or NHK World Japan which publish media about their home country in English intened for an international audience.

So what other questions should we have about Sixth Tone? I'm interested in an discussion about this with y'all.

  • Straight_Depth [they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    It's fine, it offers the occasional counter-cultural narrative to the usual CGTN/CCTV stuff and also shows that you can, in fact, criticize a fair amount of Chinese internal affairs, and humanizes Chinese people.

    Everything should be read with a critical lens, and just as we excoriate WaPo, NYT, et al, Sixth Tone doesn't deserve any less. The difference is that 6thT comes from a weaker place with a smaller viewer base than the Western sources, and as such, plays a much smaller role in inventing reality

    • PlantsRstillCool [des/pair]
      ·
      3 years ago

      That's something i noticed. It has quite a bit of content critical of the Chinese state but only ever about cultural issues. Criticism of like the rest of the state seems pretty sparse on there.

      • Straight_Depth [they/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Not sure if it counts as a purely cultural issue, but it also criticised the infamous 996 culture, praised the food delivery drivers going on strike, and so forth

        • PlantsRstillCool [des/pair]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Good point.

          Criticism of 996 is actual Chinese state policy at this point so idk if I'd consider that criticism of the Chinese state but yeah they have covered non culture issues critically so i stand corrected on that

  • Alaskaball [comrade/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    So what other questions should we have about Sixth Tone

    Do they have a section for tourists that want to visit and see cool sights like the rainbow mountains?

    • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      There are a lot of good expat YouTube channels for that sort of stuff. Australians and Brits that moved to China and just vlog about travel and general life.

      Usually pretty solid because they talk to the locals and get great footage of places that western media refuses to go and Chinese media just uses B-roll for in international stories.

  • BladeRunner [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    which is overseen by the Shanghai committee of the Chinese Communist Party.

    sounds good