Edwin Maher, China's man at the anchor desk

The Los Angeles Times has recently run a feature on famed CCTV 9 news anchor Edwin Maher. Edwin is a good friend of China Media News, and it's good to see that he is getting the respect he deserves. Among the foreign staff (and perhaps all staff) at CCTV 9, Edwin is perhaps the warmest. His jokes, sunny personality, and genuine interest in the lives of his colleagues make him a valuable member of the team.

Nonetheless, as you'll see in the Times article, not everyone thinks Edwin is doing the right thing by parroting the government's propaganda on international television:

"It sounds like an effort to lend a whiff of Western-style credibility to their news operations, in a superficial way, without having to actually adhere to high standards such as fairness, independence, balance, public service and accuracy," said Neil Henry, a UC Berkeley School of Journalism professor.

"But a propagandist is a propagandist, no matter what one's race or country of origin."

Maher hears from his critics -- from irate e-mail writers to the foreigners he meets. "One writer said there was no excuse for what I was doing. And Westerners on the street will ask how I feel about being a mouthpiece for the Chinese government."

He's unapologetic. He calls his CCTV anchor job the biggest break of a career that has spanned decades in Australia and his native New Zealand.

The article is well worth a read.