The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said on Friday that the government is planning on policies to better regulate news portals and to stop commercial news portals, which are not issued news reporting license, from reporting news.
The CAC and the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT) on Friday issued press cards to the first group of 594 reporters from 14 "major central news portals," including the authorized Chinese government portal, official websites of People's Daily and Xinhua News Agency and a portal for Tibet.
"The press card is the same as that held by traditional media. Card holders enjoy the same reporting rights, responsibilities and obligations," CAC spokesperson Jiang Jun said at the ceremony.
The employees of commercial news portals such as Sina and Sohu however were not included.
Jiang said commercial news portals do not have the right to interview people or report news independently and the CAC is temporarily not considering issuing them press cards.
Jiang also said the CAC is planning to establish an occupational qualification system that will help regulate news portals and end commercial news portals' practice of interviewing people, while the punishment of and supervision over conducting interviews without a press card will be enhanced.
"The government has made clarification within the journalism industry which defined what they can do and cannot do, and that aims to help regulate journalism work," Zhang Zhi'an, a professor at the School of Communication and Design of Sun Yat-sen University, told the Global Times on Friday.
He explained that all media outlets in China are State-owned while commercial news portals, although online news media, are not, and so can only publish news produced by other news sites.
China previously banned websites from reporting on news, only allowing them to edit and publish news from traditional media.
