Media find they have greater influence on political landscape
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
New York Times
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Raymond Chan, waging a hot race to win back his seat in Parliament, called a news conference here recently and invited only the four newspapers, three radio stations and two television stations that operate in Chinese. The English-language news media were left to scurry after one of the best political stories in town -- a former Cabinet minister, an immigrant from Hong Kong, in a race for the Liberal Party nomination for the national House of Commons against a non-Chinese competitor.
At the news conference, the Chinese-language reporters bowed politely after each challenging question. Did Chan really support same-sex marriage, as supporters of his competitor had told socially conservative readers of the Chinese media? Did he really favor legislation to oblige immigrants to report offshore assets to the tax authorities?
"It has been difficult, but I have friends, lots of friends," Chan said in Mandarin, smiling into the cameras of Fairchild television and Channel M, two Chinese stations. Then, easily switching to Cantonese, he denied his opponents' assertions.
Leaving the mainstream media out of the political dialogue is not unusual anymore in a city whose Chinese population has exploded from a tiny minority to 30 percent of all residents in just one generation. By making his pitch directly to the 40 percent of his district's voters who are ethnic Chinese, Chan was giving a nod to Vancouver's parallel worlds.
The Chinese population in Canada has doubled in the past two decades to 1.1 million, or more than 3 percent of all residents. But nowhere is its presence felt more than in this metropolitan area of 1.8 million, of which 342,665, or 19 percent, are ethnic Chinese, according to the 2001 census.
The rise in the ethnic Chinese population has stimulated meteoric growth in the Chinese media and made them an influential player on the Canadian political landscape. Their influence is even beginning to be felt back in Asia, particularly after their aggressive reporting on the SARS epidemic, which reached into Canada last year.
Just as there are shiny new malls here that operate entirely in Cantonese and Mandarin, there is a commerce of ideas, news and entertainment in the local media that is beyond the comprehension of a shrinking majority.
"The Vancouver Sun doesn't cover what we cover," noted Jane Zhang, the 40-year-old president of Global Chinese Press, a newspaper that began publishing twice weekly in 2000 and already has a reported circulation of 60,000. "Immigrants need to survive first, and that's what we keep in mind," she said.
The paper is full of useful tidbits for the new mainland Chinese population -- how to write a résumé, for instance, start a business or join a political party -- and cultural items such as a recent article explaining why Canadians observe St. Patrick's Day.
Much emphasis is given to counseling parents on what they may expect from their teenage children growing up in a society with far looser mores than back home.
A Chinese radio station, CHMB AM 1320, which began in 1973 with one hour of leased broadcast time a day, is now ranked third in advertising revenue among all radio stations in Vancouver. Ming Pao, the largest circulation Chinese daily, reported an increase in circulation to 115,000 in 2000 from 83,000 in 1995, and its numbers keep growing.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/2483601