ABSTRACT
This chapter first presents the theoretical background, detailing an established distinction between Party journalism and market journalism. It introduces the author's data selection and data analysis methods. The chapter then focuses on the analytical results, showing how the protagonists are presented respectively in Caixin and CCTV. Caixin was one of the first media to pay attention to the Covid-19 outbreak and offered many timely and in-depth reports. The video-report by CCTV can be deemed an example of the direction undertaken by official media in Xi Jinping’s “new era” in order to enhance their appeal in the era of digitalisation. The Caixin report explicitly pointed out that the Wuhan and Hubei governments should be held accountable for the epidemic crisis. Health workers are covered extensively in both reports, but the two differ substantially on how they are depicted. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the findings and their implications on the media control strategy in the Xi era.
