For those who will miss the fawning tone and tenor of presidential news coverage to which we have grown accustomed in the age of Obama, there’s always Chinese media and its coverage of the Communist party and its leaders.
Take China Daily, which recently brought its hardnosed reporting style to covering President Xi Jinping’s New Year’s address. “Netizens have responded enthusiastically” to the speech, gushed China Daily in a lead article titled “Xi’s call for hard work strikes a chord.” The people of the Internet were “equally impressed by the content and inspirational phrasing of the speech, during which he said that ‘only hard work will make dreams come true.’ ”
China Daily did not fail to point out the tremendous success that was last year’s speech: Xi’s “2016 address inspired pop songs that incorporated catchphrases from his speech.” This year’s address didn’t disappoint, as the new catchphrases—such as “rolling up our sleeves”—added “a sparkle to the picture of diligence and unity that proved popular among netizens.”
It was not noted how many “netizens” were inspired to adopt as their own the personal motto of Boxer the horse: “I will work harder!”
