The Kicker

09:51 AM - March 4, 2010

“China Daily has set up its biggest team yet to cover this important event.”

What important event, you ask? Some industrial scandal? Unrest in western provinces?

Nope. The important event worthy of full court coverage from China Daily is, of course, the March 1 redesign of China Daily itself.

For more gee-whizery like that, click through to the state owned and run paper’s site to watch a video heralding the paper’s new “cosmopolitan and sophisticated” style, complete with an complementary expat-on-the-street interview, shaky hand held closeups, and page count boasts.

(Via James Fallows, who has some other great examples of “surplus earnestness” from China Daily.)

Clint Hendler is the managing editor of Mother Jones, and a former deputy editor of CJR.

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