On the Beijingology Wiki, I've been doing quite a bit of new articles lately -- in particular comparing the city's newspapers. Not a lot of work, actually; there are only entries for the Wanbao, Beijing Daily and Beijing Youth Daily, but I'm beginning to think quite a bit about newspapers...

The Wanbao (as in the Beijing Evening News) remains my absolute favorite. To-the-point, informative and with a whole load of good content, it's no wonder I pick this paper up just about every evening and tell you what's in it. As for its daytime edition, it's not the officialspeak machine some think it is; in fact, a recent Beijing Daily got me informed about how the Olympics are going along (they're doing a lot for it).

On the national level, I trust the People's Daily to give me nothing more than the official line. The paper of public record, the contents are clean (sometimes too clean), a bit boring, and always that bit more official. If I wanted something more global, I'd keep away from the Global Times and favor the Reference News, which quotes foreign agencies verbatim.

I rarely take a glimpse at the other papers -- at the bottom of the list remain The First, the Beijing Daily Messenger and the Beijing Morning Post. Although, hey, being the Beijingologist, I should, though...

When the going gets too tough, I fall back onto that great big Internet out there and see how things are doing back in Switzerland, thanks to Swissinfo.org and Swiss Teletext. Ahh... the feeling of two homes at the same time...