About The 4th Media
The April Media, the mother of the 4th Media, is an independent media organization based in Beijing, China. The company combines a series of communication services to comprehensively build a network of new media platforms with contents that satisfy the needs of a wide and diversified audience.
The services include The 4th Media English Website, Television network, Radio network, Youth Portals, BBS Forum, Micro blog, and SNS (Social Network Site).
The Chinese version of April Media’s Website (www.m4.cn) is the first-ever Chinese youth portal to be created.
The website focuses particularly on young people and carries across the vision of the youth and Chinese identity while engaging in issues of global concerns, thereby intends to build a network for the youth to connect and also to be connected with the world and freely share their views with the people around the globe.
The Website is also a media platform to meet and encourage healthy, constructive and progressive minds for empowerment with a humble vision for a better future of the whole humanity.
The 4th Media, English version of the April Media Website (http://www.4thmedia.org), provides “Just Another Voice” in the progressive media global landscape.
With the new media platform, words, images, audio and video clips are combined to reach out to the audience in an active manner, the April Media tries to satisfy multicultural and personalized needs of the youth by providing information and entertainment, interactive applications, micro blog sharing and building communities.
Our platform translates relevant information, news analyses from both mainstream and progressive independent foreign media outlets to the Chinese speaking audience and vice-versa. In order to give a true and more objective picture of the world, we also package hot issues in current affairs, arguments, media critiques, celebrity news, youth topics and literary communication, etc. We do news, audio and video editing.
By thinking about national tradition, security, and demonstrating anxiety to occurrences within and outside our national boundaries, April Media strikingly demonstrates its responsibility and consciousness.
The 4th Media Team
Editor-in-Chief (Korean-American)
Dr. Kiyul Chung, Visiting Professor, School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Editor-at-large (Japanese-American)
Yoichi Shimatzu (Former Editor, Japan Weekly Times)
International Editors and Reporters
Anna Varfolomeeva (Russian)
Ma Xin (Chinese)
Yang Jingming (Chinese)
International Correspondents
Ekaterian Volozova (Russian-American)
Iram Zahra (Pakistan)
Manzie Vincent Doh (Cameroon)
International Assistant Editors
Emilie Xie (French)
Ruby Zhang (Chinese)
A Brief History of the 4th Media
In 2008, it was a very small beginning which then not many people paid attention to. However, within two years, it became a huge number of peoples’ interests both domestically and worldwide. It was due to many million peoples’ visits to this small but heroic adventure, called www.Anti-CNN.com. This brave first step was made by a young Chinese man, Rao Jin when he just graduated from Tsinghua University in Beijing.
Even if this webmedia began with Chinese language only in 2008, a record number of clicks and visits from around the globe grew up to more than 100 million by 2010. However, these numbers mostly came from his Chinese compatriots, understandingly mainly due to its language choice. His successful adventure but realization of language issue as a limit to future growth pushed him to further envision with a much larger challenge to create a global English webmedia.
That’s how a brand new global media, called the 4th Media as the separate English media of the April Media Group was born.
Last July Mr. Rao came to Tsinghua and sought for help from the School of Journalism and Communication. The then Senior Deputy Administrative Dean of the school recommended Dr. Chung, one of its Visiting Professors to Mr. Rao. It was when Prof. Chung was called in to help working with him to build both his and everybody’s vision become a reality.
Last September in 2010, believing in his vision now as everybody’s, trusting everybody’s combined global human networks, knowledge, mobilizing global friendships, acquaintances, and all sort of worldwide encounters, Prof. Chung, together with his 5 Tsinghua (School of Journalism and Communication) international graduate students from 4 different continents, joined Mr. Rao and his Chinese compatriots to begin this new, meaningful and collective journey.
However, with determined commitments by the leadership on the April Media, together with 1) a humble but appropriate manpower, meaning, a team of committed people from both China and around the world, i.e., those 5 international student reporters (part-time) in the beginning, 2) the 4th Media’s sociopolitical and global perspectives and editorial politics, and 3) warm supports from around the globe, mainly through a global networking of our friendships around the world, we believe this brand new global media seemed to have made so far a very much successful start.
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Editorial Contact
ChiefEditor [at] m4.com.cn (Please change “[at]” to “@” when you send emails, Thanks!)
