News Broadcasting
Al Jazeera shuts China bureau following journalist’s expulsion
MUMBAI: Qatar-based news network Al Jazeera has closed down its Beijing bureau following the Chinese government’s refusal to to renew the press credentials and visa of Melissa Chan, its sole correspondent, and allow a replacement journalist.
Expressing disappointment at the Chinese government’s decision, Al Jazeera English said it has been requesting additional visas for correspondents for some time and which has not been obliged with.
The news broadcaster said it will continue to work with Chinese authorities to re-open the Beijing bureau.
Al Jazeera said Melissa Chan, who has been Al Jazeera English’s China correspondent since 2007, has filed nearly 400 reports covering stories about the economy, domestic politics, foreign policy, the environment, social justice, labour rights and human rights.
Al Jazeera English Director Salah Negm said, “We’ve been doing a first class job at covering all stories in China. Our editorial DNA includes covering all stories from all sides. We constantly cover the voice of the voiceless and sometimes that calls for tough news coverage from anywhere in world.
“We hope China appreciates the integrity of our news coverage and our journalism. We value this journalist integrity in our coverage of all countries in the world. We are committed to our coverage of China. Just as China news services cover the world freely we would expect that same freedom in China for any Al Jazeera journalist.”
The ruling Communist party in China, which has long been known as hostile to international media, has found itself to be at loggerheads with foreign media many times.
The Communist party has been giving state broadcaster CCTV and the official Xinhua News Agency a major push into foreign language media in a bid to spread its own pro-China take on domestic and international events.
The move “seems to be taking China’s anti-media policies to a new level,” said Committee to Protect Journalists’ Asia coordinator Bob Dietz in a statement.
According to Dietz, Chan’s case “marks a real deterioration in China’s media environment and sends a message that international coverage is unwanted”.
The last time a journalist was expelled was when a German and a Japanese reporter were expelled in late 1998.
According to Associated Press, Chan has left China for California, where she will be taking up a Knight Fellowship at Stanford University.
China had pledged to relax restrictions on foreign journalists as part of its hosting of the 2008 Summer Olympics, but changes have been minor and conditions have in some ways grown even more hostile.
News Broadcasting
News TV viewership jumps 33 per cent as West Asia war draws audiences
BARC Week 8 data shows news share rising to 8 per cent despite T20 World Cup
NEW DELHI:Â Even as individual television news channel ratings remain under a temporary pause, the genre itself is seeing a clear surge in audience attention.
According to the latest data from Broadcast Audience Research Council India, television news recorded a 33 per cent jump in genre share in Week 8 of 2026, covering February 28 to March 6.
The news genre accounted for 8 per cent of total television viewership during the week, up from 6 per cent the previous week. The spike in attention coincided with escalating geopolitical tensions involving the United States, Israel and Iran, which have kept global headlines firmly fixed on West Asia.
The rise is notable because it came at a time when cricket was dominating television screens. The high-stakes stages of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, including the Super 8 fixtures and semi-finals, were being broadcast during the same period.
Despite the cricket frenzy, viewers appeared to be toggling between sport and global affairs, boosting the overall share of news programming.
The surge in genre share comes even as the government has enforced a one-month pause on publishing ratings for individual news channels. The move followed regulatory scrutiny of the television ratings ecosystem.
While channel-level rankings remain temporarily out of sight, the genre-level data suggests that when global tensions escalate, audiences continue to turn to television news for real-time updates.
