Several of Shanghai's newspapers are trying out a new gimmick to attract readers and advertisers -- English-language supplements.

Little evidence exists, however, to suggest the idea is working.

Shanghai Weekly, a lifestyle newspaper targeting well-educated, young office workers and university students, was the first local publication to try out the idea, publishing a page of English stories each week since the paper was launched in October 2000.

The plan was to differentiate the new paper from its rival, the Shanghai Times.

"To put it more exactly, it is a bilingual page," said Wang Rong, who edits the page. "We found many of our readers are enthusiastic about improving their English."

"Once we modified the page to make the English content more sophisticated, but readers responded negatively, saying it is too difficult for them to read. We had to change back," she said.

While the paper is still struggling to attract advertisers, it has built its circulation up to 300,000 copies a week.

The English page at Shanghai Weekly did not go unnoticed by the Shanghai Times, which introduced a similar page in August 2002.

"The page is intended to provide some practical English for our regular readers, mainly white-collar workers and university students, to improve their English while enjoying their leisure time," said editor Zhu Ye.

According to Zhu, articles for the page come from the Internet, his friends or readers and himself and are written in simple English.

"The page is popular among our readers, but it's difficult to say whether it has helped the newspaper's sales," said Jiang Jian, an editor with the Shanghai Times.

The weekly says it sold more than 400,000 copies of its latest issue.

Not to be outdone, the Oriental Morning Post has joined the fray, offering a more-ambitious English section than the two weeklies.

The daily publishes an eight-page English insert every Friday called Oriental Express.

"The daily is intended for all sorts of people, including those in the city who prefer to or can only read English," said Guo Jia, who edits Oriental Express. "The Express is not doing timely news, but focusing on fashion, features and real estate. All of that information is interesting and helpful to foreigners living here," said Guo.

"Foreigners won't buy a Chinese newspaper to read its English page," said Huang Hu, a journalism professor at Fudan University. "Clearly those English pages have a positioning problem."

(eastday.com December 3, 2003)