An article in the Lijiang Weekly News (丽江新闻周报) recently caught my attention: party secretary of the municipal party committee Wang Junzheng 王君正 has stressed the need to avoid the “eight legged news report” style of journalistic writing.

“Eight legged news reports” 新闻八股文 are a play on the eight-legged essays 八股文, a style of essay employed in the imperial examinations during the Ming and Qing that has become synonymous with pedantry and lack of innovation.

According to the paper, which cites ‘the internet’ as its source (good old amorphous internet), the ‘eight legged news reports’ are seen by Chinese internet users as adhering to the following eight rules (hasty translation mine):

1.开会没有不隆重的

there are no meetings that are not grand

2.闭幕没有不胜利的

there are no closing ceremonies that are not successful

3.讲话没有不重要的

there are no speeches that are not important

4.鼓掌没有不热烈的

there is no applause that is not warm

5.领导没有不重视的

there is nothing that the leaders do not pay attention to

6.看望没有不亲切的

there are no (official) visits that are not amiable

7.气氛没有不友好的

there is no atmosphere that is not friendly

8.成就没有不辉煌的

there are no achievements that are not glorious

To anyone who reads the Chinese papers, or watches the international joke that is 新闻联播, or indeed those of us who make a meager living translating such reports, these rules are painfully familiar: I’d laugh, if only I could stop crying.

The secretary singled out new reports on party meetings as especially formulaic. He suggested that reports concentrate on the important outcomes of the meetings, not trivial details, such as when it took place, in which hotel, or which dignitaries/party members attended the meeting.

Right – and here’s me thinking that the news reports are so formulaic because the meetings themselves are formulaic: there are rarely any real outcomes, so reporters resort to tired conventions and useless details to make up the word count. It’s going to take more than one party secretary of a relatively insignificant provincial city to change the way the Chinese press works, methinks.