The commentary points out: The current rapid development of information technology (IT), particularly information network technology, has not only exerted widespread influence in various fields of social life, it also represents a fundamental breakthrough and change in the information dissemination field itself. With the characteristics of a large information capacity, a rapid rate of dissemination, a wide covering range, a high degree of openness and interaction, internet has increasingly become an important carrier in the activity of cultural dissemination and socio-economic activity.

The commentary also notes: The Party Central Committee with Comrade Jiang Zemin at the core pays high attention to the construction and development of internet media. China's internet construction has gone through the process of growing out of nothing, after several short years of development, China's internet, now with a fairly solid foundation and significant strength, has played a positive role in domestic and foreign public opinion publicity and in major international media struggle. A group of news websites with independent domains have developed rapidly, the People's Daily, Xinhua News Agency, CRI (China Radio International), China Daily, China Internet Information Center and other key websites, in particular, give timely, accurate and comprehensive publicity on the Party's lines, principles and policies and persist in giving correct opinion guidance and has thus played an important role in sparking enthusiasm and inspiring morale, making positive contributions to China's reform, developme nt and stability.

The commentary says: Internet media construction and news publicity is a new thing, which is at the initial stage of development in China, so from the very beginning we must have a clear guiding thought and working principle, a unified, long-term program and arrangement.

Today, People's Daily published alongside the commentary a report titled "Authoritative Media, the Public Website" written by Our Staff Reporters Liao Hong and Chen Zhixia of People's Daily Online. The report says: In August 1996 the Editorial Board of People's Daily decided to prepare for the establishment of People's Daily Online; on January 1, 1997 People's Daily Online formally entered the international internet, beginning to transmit the voice of the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government to the world. At that time, internet had just entered China, the amount of online Chinese information and the number of Chinese websites were pathetically limited. People's Daily Online has in practice blazed a trail of its own in network media: It gives full play to the editing advantage of People's Daily, while maintaining the authority of the People's Daily, it makes use of internet's characteristics of having a large capacity, strong effectiveness of time and capability of retrieval and interaction, it increases its attraction, readability and affinity, striving to turn People's Daily Online into a website widely loved by the netizens in general.

In less than one year, the content of People's Daily Online has exceeded that of People's Daily published in paper, making it the largest Chinese network media in Internet and winning the favorable comments of the internet readers.

As an official newspaper of the CPC Central Committee, People's Daily took the lead to go online and bring along central and local media to follow suit. Beginning in 1998, news media circles nationwide have set off an upsurge of getting accession to internet. According to incomplete statistics, presently, there are more than 2,000 news websites in China.

Three years have elapsed, People's Daily Online publishes five versions in four languages (simplified Chinese, Complex form of Chinese, English, Japanese and French), has four mirror sites (the United States, Japan, sci-tech net and education net), it releases more than 2,000 items of updated news a day, and possesses more than 300 databases with a data amount running to 100 million words and a comprehensive information service platform providing full-text retrieval, free mail-box, subscription of news, and various kinds of BBS services. Over the past three years, People's Daily Online has persisted in giving correct opinion guidance and holding high the banner of authority and mass character, refrained from repeating the same old things and from impetuosity, instead, it has provided news information and various services for the internet users in a down-to-earth manner, it has thus become a new window to helping readers both at home and abroad to understand China, it is fully affirmed by central leaders, relevant departments and the broad masses of netizens. Comrades Jiang Zemin and Li Peng personally read People's Daily Online, and Comrade Ding Guangen has inspected the work of People's Daily Online.

(People's Daily)