China plans to launch an Al Jazeera-style channel, according to David Barboza of The New York Times. Be interesting to see what comes of this.

Al Jazeera has certainly come into its own as the sole-source for Gaza reporting during the current war in the Middle East, so perhaps a Chinese channel can find its own role.

That said, they will have to deal with the fact that financing comes from a government that imprisons journalists and censors the Internet.

UPDATE: Good posting on the Zhongnanhaiblog about this.

SHANGHAI – China’s biggest state-controlled news organizations plan to spend billions of dollars to expand overseas as part of a government effort to improve the nation’s image abroad and to create respected international news organizations, according to people briefed on the proposal.

The country’s increasingly wealthy media giants, which operate under China’s censorship rules and according to its propaganda motives, are trying to acquire international media assets, to open more overseas news bureaus and to publish and broadcast more broadly in English and other languages. Many of them have already announced plans to hire English-speaking Chinese and foreign media specialists.