the number of people seeking unemployment aid last week fell to its lowest level since mid test may suggesting that layoffs are easing and hiring could pick up. the labor department says weekly unemployment benefit applications dropped by 14,000 to a seasonally adjusted 374,000. when applications consistently fall below that, it's generally suggest hiring a strong enough to reduce the unemployment rate the european central bank has cut its key interest rate zero 0.25%. that follows a rate cut by the chinese central bank a new stimulus measures by the bank of england. the european central bank cut of the recent -- and the refinancing rate is ended giving a further boost the sagging european economy. leaders agreed last week to strengthen the eurocurrency.

mitt romney's wife says her husband is thinking about picking a woman to be on his ticket this fall. mitt romney tells cbs news --ann romney says it should be someone who can do the job but will be able to carry through the other responsibilities. meanwhile, the report presumptive republican nominee declined to describe the vice- presidential search and said it is something he is keeping close with his team. president obama begins a two-day bus tour in a while and pennsylvania today and will talk about his economic policy, his decision to rescue u.s. automakers, and raise questions about mitt romney's business record. the president's town hall meeting near toledo, ohio will be live at 11:45 a.m. eastern time and you could listen on cspan radio. republicans today are sending bobby jindal and former

minnesota governor tim pawlenty to some of the same towns along the president's tour. a warning from internet service providers and the fbi -- your web serving could run aground on monday if your computer is infected with a certain type malware. it is estimate some 64,000 computers in this country are still infected more than one year after this particular malicious softer was unleashed. those are some of the latest headlines on cspan radio. >> one of my favorite drugs to talk about is topamine which is in half of cows and half of pigs and half of turkey's. it is able to make animals grow faster. this particular drug is not withdrawn when it will come to the killing floor. when the animal is killed, the

drug is in their. >> this weekend, martha rosenberg looks behind the food and drug industry. that is sunday night at 9:00, part of book-tv this weekend on c-span 2. "washington journal" continues- >> we continue looking at foreign broadcasters operating in the u.s. and we kicked things up on monday, the first english language newschannel headquartered in the middle east. tuesday, deutsche welle of germany. yesterday we focused on voice of america, the official broadcasting of the u.s. government's and we wrap things up with bbc america tomorrow. today we learned cctv. jim laurie is an executive consultant to the chinese news service based here in

washington. thanks for coming in. >guest: thanks for having me. host: tell us about the mission ofcctv and what it has done and the united states. guest: china central television is the largest television presence in the world's largest television nation. it is a state-of, state operated television station, more than 13,000 employees, all round the world, mainly feeding the chinese population with news, current affairs, entertainment, sports and every imaginable kind of broadcasting from beijing and for the entire nation. in recent years, maybe 12 years ago, china central television began to develop international channels that reached out to the world. it was limited at first.

they founded and english- language channel called channel 9 and in the last few years, there has been an attempt to replicate with other international broadcasters are doing and that is create a newschannel to put out in the world. the chinese are johnny-come- latelies on this. they only started to think about it news channel in 2009. in 2010, in april, they launched what they call cctv news which is a 24-7 news channel broadcast out of beijing and seen here and the washington area on comcast channel 273 amongst other cable/satellite operators in washington and around the united states and around the world. the attempt was to replicate what they saw other countries doing, state television in cap

tarp, aljazeera which went from an arabic language channel to an english-language channel in 2005-2006, russia today was launched first in moscow and a fairly large american operation was launched in washington two or three years ago broadcasting's this of a plea to the north american audience. it was an e evolutionary process and the chinese have expanded their operations beginning in april, 2010 and now they have decided to open up full broadcast centers in various capitals of the world to produce programming. host: let's take a look at some details about cctv.

tell us more about cctv-america which was launched in february and you are producing one hour programming here in the united states? guest: the intention was to have different ruckus' centers focusing on different parts of the world. they first launched a broadcast center in nairobi, kenya which focused on the african continent they went on the air in january with one hour per day. they hired good african journalists in every african country and produced seven days per week programming. beginning in september-october last year, we began to build an operation here in washington and we began to hire good quality professional international broadcasters to work here in washington to produce initially one hour per day of programming

to be expended by the end of this year to four hours per day mainly during what we refer to as american prime time, the evening hours. we are currently on the air at 9:00- 10:00 each evening. much of the program is devoted to business news. we have a program called "biz aged-america." the staff has come to us from bloomberg, fox news, abc, nbc, all the major networks here in the states. the total operation is roughly 100 people here in washington which will be expanded to provide more coverage as the year goes on. host: we were talking about details like being lost in february of last year -- of this year talk to us about editorial

content. who makes the decisions about which stories to air. ? does the government have control of what gets on the air? guest: to nutley, the government has control in any state -- ultimately, the government has control and any state-operated system. in terms of the actual practical aspect of every day journalism, there is a great deal of economy that is afforded to the washington operation. there is a team of the editorial managers from china who rests here in washington, live here in washington. the mandate for the washington operation, as you alluded to, is to cover north and south america. a lot of resources are being extended in covering south america, for example, and recover a wide range of issues

and the decision making in terms of what goes on the air during the hours we are on the air rests here in washington. host: if you like to join the conversation, here are the numbers to call -- let's take a big story that was in the news recently covered extensively in the united states, the dissident who had come to america now in new york. how did cctv cover that story and when news get back to china? guest: the english-language channel is seen everywhere in the world including china. one recognizes that the numbers of english speakers in china are a distinct minority. at ould venture to save th over the last 25 years watching

china that there are different standards set for chinese- language broadcasting which is aimed at the chinese mainland population and standards of broadcasting for international viewers in the english language. in the case of the dissident, one has to be realistic. it was not played up as a big story in chin the way it played in the hours we're responsible here in washington. it was part of the hillary clinton visit to china. it was in that context that in this story played out. as you recall, the situation in the u.s. embassy threatened to derail to a certain extent the clinton-guide her visit at that time -- geithbner visit at that time. there's a diplomatic move to resolve this issue. watching the american networks

as i did at that time, we basically saw the dissident story as the number one dominant story. by the way, hillary clinton and secretary tim geithner were intended to discuss important issues. the way china -- which is covered it was there were board meetings in china with the chinese leadership and hillary clinton and mr. geithner and the situation with the dissident has been resolved by his leading the u.s. embassy and going into a hospital and later it came to america . host: jim laurie is an executive consultant for cctv. he spent time internationally in journalism. guest: most of my career has been overseas, much of it in asia. i have worked in china often

done since 1978. i went to school here in washington and studied chinese history. my life has been fairly vested in asia, if you will. host: let's take a democratic caller from north carolina, good morning. caller: i would like to know -- everything is all about the money. i am afraid people just come in and do anything they want to do. it should not be like that. i found out that abc was connected with disney. internationally, i think you have to make sure that all your intentions are good because at this stage in our lifetime, it is just anything is possible. host: are you talking about who

controls the news you see? are you concerned about the content? caller: exactly because their lobbies. sometimes i raised my eyebrows even at obama. guest: thanks for your comment and question. i will not venture into the financial aspects and how they impact american commercial television. i think it is fairly clear that the advertising and commercials creates a certain desire for a certain type of content. i do want to address the issue of why the chinese ventured into this area of 24-7 news.

they wanted to be part of the conversation with aljazeera english, with russia today, with the bbc and cnn international. there has been a procession in the developing world -- a perception in the developing world that media has been dominated by cnn and bbc. i think there has been in the last 10 years a situation where a lot of countries including china are saying that we need to have part of this pie. we need to be able to present alternatives to what the bbc and cnn and the big players are doing. host: here is an e-mail -- let's take a look at a clip from a show called 24-china about asians in america.

>> the u.s. asian population has risen in recent years at rates rarely reveled in america. as a modern immigration wave that pushed the group from less than 1% of the population in 1965 to a record 18. million in 2011, more than five- fold increase. host: was that story of interest? guest: that is from our correspondent and los angeles. essentially, a lot of stories that involve asia and americans are very much part of the agenda of cctv news. the survey that that piece came out of was that the asian- american community is now the largest community -- minority community in america. that was an important event to consider so we consider a lot of

issues that draw asia and america together. host: tony joins us from charleston, south carolina, independent line. caller: we obviously have a bias in our media and news reporting in the u.s. fox news leans to the right and msnbc toward the left. could this lead to any bias in reporting at cctv. host: let's turn it into a question about the role of cctv and the direction. guest: i think the main aim

right now for cctv america is to produce quality content which basically can be put side-by- side with the bbc and cnn and aljazeera english and the regarded as respectable, honest, quality reporting. there has been a great deal of emphasis to hire the best people and broadcasting to bring this about. one of the tragedy's of the present era is that the traditional networks have been downsizing because of the economy, because of fewer dollars being spent. you see great networks like the bbc being forced to retreat in terms of spending because of the freezing of funds in great britain and the parliament will no longer find the bbc world service radio. they have spread themselves a bit thin in terms of budget.

this is a good thing for a new channel, a sort of a channel like cc tv. we have been able to reach out to quality journalists and say come on board. we recently hired, in the last four or five months, three former bbc correspondents in south america. in havana, cuba, in sao paulo, brazil, and in lima, peru and we are developing and south america a network of correspondents that will be greater than anybody. no other network will have as many correspondents covering south america. we have a weekly program devoted to south america, a program called americas now and that program allows a very experienced correspondents south america to come up with good in- depth pieces, 6 test well in its stores which are very powerful. michael voss is our

correspondent in havana, cuba and has been there a long time and bbc said to come back to london and he did not want to go so he joined cctv and has done exxon reporting in the area. -- and has done excellent reporting in the area. host: are democrats lined as next -- caller: i would like to ask about the chinese communist government. it does not refer to itself as communists anymore. it calls itself market socialism. justt the leaders of china consolidating their power and wealth and will never really be able to return to democracy? guest: thank you very much. i'm not going to look into a crystal ball and tell you what china will look like in 10 or 20 years.

clearly, the communist party is the ruling. party of ruling -- is the ruling party of china. that will not change any time soon and because of that, there are certain areas that will be controlled. having said that, i have been observing china -- i would first went in 1968. i covered china for abc news in the early 1980's. i have been absolutely astonished by the incremental change an incremental in terms of freedom as well that we have seen in china since the 1980's. what is developing in china now is remarkable when you examined the internet, micro-blogging where there is a range of voices that were silent until now. i'm relatively optimistic about china.

in my observation, it has been the case of several steps forward and then a couple of steps back and then a few steps forward. there is a to and fro to the chinese dynamic which is endlessly fascinating to meet. host: this is from twitter -- guest: i think the proof is in the eating of the pudding. in need to make up your own mind. watch at 9:00 every night, seven days per week on what ever cable system or satellite system you may have and see the quality of reporting and see whether you can detect a particular bias and then make up your own mind. one of the wonderful things these days in media and as an old media person, sometimes i am somewhat critical of the free- wheeling ways of the internet and a 500-channel universe but the good thing is that we can

compare and contrast so easily. we can go on line. we can compare our content. we can compare fox news with our current tv and msnbc. we have all these resources to draw upon and we can make up our own lives and who was most accurate and who is most fair. host: we are seeing cc tv news. let's hear from the republican caller in new jersey. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. you mentioned hillary clinton and mr. de widener. -- geithner but you did not mention mr. bernanke. is there a reason and is there a story to the fed being in china? guest: it was my personal mission. i have no interest in sliding

mr. bernanke. -- selecting mr. bernanke. my point was that the chinese television coverage emphasize the critical importance of the economic relationship and treated as secondary the issue of the dissidents. american media created an impression that the main event was the dissident and a minor event was the economic relationship. host: here's a story from the united states trade representative, a press release that came out today -- is this the kind of story that cc tv news would cover? guest: i cannot say for sure.

i am sure this will be on the agenda for consideration. the general policy is to take a story like this and presented from both sides. so long as there is a chinese position to be voiced and alternative positions, both sides will be represented. there has been a lot of debate will last several years about the remembyi and where should be verses the dollar and in this country, there has been pressured that it has been unfair not to allow the rmb not to be valued up for. the chinese feel that they cannot move too quickly in that direction. if you watched fox news or cnn or other american media outlets, he would feel there is only one side of the story, that the chinese work out to artificially keep this rmb at a particular

level to bolster exports from china and in some ways doom the u.s. to its increasing poverty. the chinese will accept that position but they want to have their say. you don't see their side on fox news or m -- or nbc. host: jim laurie is an executive consultant with cc tb so let's go to a democratic caller in vermont. caller: this is more about continuity of news throughout the world. you take a lot of the major players, they are just repeating the same point over and over. i think this is more of an agenda to get a one world government kind of thing. what are your thoughts on that? guest: i don't subscribe to one

world government kind of thing but what has evolved in media in general, as we have moved to the 500-channel universe and a multi it million url universe is that we no longer have the same kind of standards of broadcast journalism. that i grew up with. went on to0's and work in the 1980's. we had essentially three networks and their mission was to create a product that would encompass the largest possible group. we have to satisfy every possible viewer because all the viewers only had three or four choices. as it moved into the 1990's, we have a situation where we have cable television, we have the internet, we have this proliferation of all kinds of television channels and internet

channels. we have a situation where the market is more fragmented. we have fox-ification of news were opinion becomes acceptable in the marketplace. i went to india in 2000 to develop indian news channels and i ask what kind of newschannel do you respect in india. i was expecting them to save the bbc. -- to say the bbc. they thought the most interesting news channel is fox news. it is because they are engaging and they have an agenda. we want to have an agenda, too. we want to be like fox news. that is the way we can reach out to a minority but to a dedicated audience. you see over time the fragmentation of audience around the world and various

broadcasters realizing that they need to present alternatives in order to cut through the very fragmented international marketplace. host: san francisco, an independent scholar, welcome. caller: good morning. something your guest in passing said registered with me about how players like china have to come on and be an alternative to the bbc, for example. i grew up listening to shortwave radio. i don't know how that affects tv but there is a french station on 24 hours and see in an ounce -- and so on. i grew up listening to shortwave radio and two major broadcasters just went off the air this past week, radio netherlands and radio canada international.

they are not broadcasting anymore except on the internet. and yet the chinese and other people -- the chinese are still broadcasting heavily on radio. so was the voice of america and the bbc. i am wondering if the chinese coming on the scene would be of any kind of -- would cause these other broadcasters may be on radio or television to may up the coverage including voice of america. you've got religious broadcasters now and you have a radio havana and radey of china, radio beijing and i guess it is and not much else. all the other was are shutting down curren. i'm wondering if the chinese getting heavily into broadcasting would bring back something on radio as well as television. guest: you raise a good point.

us thaten't many of still listen to shortwave. you are right that many of the short wave radio players have left the scene. the old radio peking that we use to call it that we listen to when i was young and is now chant -- china and britain international and they have a larger presence around the world including domestic broadcast frequencies and the u.s. there has been a purposeful effort to dispel cri in markets in the u.s.. i believe secretary clinton and others have commented on this issue of international broadcasters like aljazeera and others who have begun to eclipse the media as it has been

established here in the united states including the voice of america. anybody who worked as voa will have to admit that budgets have been cut and there is tremendous pressure generally speaking in congress to cut budgets. whether or not the proliferation of international voices, this international conversation, will propel the u.s. congress to vote more money for voice of america, i cannot say but your point is well taken. host: there is a story about radio netherlands -- guest: this is largely, as we have seen around the world, budgetary restrictions. it is part and parcel of the international financial crisis. it is to the chinese advantage.

they now have emerging economic power to invest in media. other countries may no longer have that option. host: let's take a look at a clip from a show called "asia today." >> pakistan and united states have reached a deal to reopen supply lines to of dagestan. it ends a seven-month closure after pakistani soldiers were killed accidentally in a drone strike. >> this follows hillary clinton and pakistani foreign ministers. clinton apologized for the november nato air strike. host: that was a clip of a news

program called "asia today"which a confined on cc tv. does a story like that get air inside china in chinese? guest: i would suspect it does but i don't know for a fact. i don't spend a lot of time reviewing -- comparing what is on the chinese channels as opposed to the u.s. channels. it is likely version of that was carried on the chinese news channel. there are so many different chinese channels. the have a 24 hour news channel and a 24-hour sports channel, 24-hour business channel -- virtually everything you have in the media space in america is reflected in chinese in china. i have been observing overall chinese language media coverage over many years. i was attached to the university of hong kong for five years and we had something called the

china media project. they would monitor very carefully chinese media. there have been a number of setbacks were last few years, the overall trend has been to be able to cover more stories in a better way over the course of the past several years. host: where giant on the republican from oklahoma, good morning. caller: good morning, i am a short wave fan, too. host: widely like short wave radio? caller: you can hear all the latest and a lot of truth. you get information from different sources and i like that of like people who are passionate about what they believe.

if you want to hear real independent critical thinkers, there's a fantastic job that. guest: i have my views about russia today but what cc tv america is try to do is also present an alternative view in terms of the stories it selects to do. this is a very important example -- south america -- there were strategy meetings in 2009 in beijing as they started to plan the 2010 launch of the news with what areas of the world are under-covered. a proposed one area that was identified and south america. it was observed that cnn virtually had no correspondence in south america. the bbc was withdrawing slowly from south america.

i had a conversation with the cc tv news lima, peru correspondent the other day in washington and he said he could not get stories about peru on the air at the bbc. now, he is on several times per week with long form stories at least once or twice a month on americas now on sunday night. for example, we ran last week a fascinating story which has local application, is toward about a man named al gross who was being held in cuba by cuban authorities. they also talked about the cuban five, five individuals charged in miami with espionage who were being held here. it was interesting but under- reported by most of the established media.

the intent is to have a situation where many of the stores that don't get reported on cnn or fox news are reported on a channel like cc tv. there's also an effort to increase presence of this channel in the american marketplace. host: let's hear from the democrats' line, district heights, maryland. caller: cc tv can be seen on over the air tv in the washington area. cc tv, aljazeera, can be seen on mhz network and you can get them over the air. host: do you watch? caller: i watched all of three of those adjust mentioned. if you don't have cable or satellite, if you are in the washington area, you have that

available to you. it is great to get the other perspective. host: jody wirtes in -- here's a story about syria -- how is this story reported on cc tv? guest: this has been an ongoing story since we launch the channel in february. the chinese and the russians have had a different position from the united states on the issue of syria. it means that we give more time

to what the chinese position is. up to now, it has been to seek a change in the situation in syria through negotiations. it does not mean that cc tv does not cover the violence in syria. they do but every time there is a condemnation of the syrian rajiv by the administration here, there will be the voice of china which calls for negotiation and moderation. it is an attempt to put the chinese perspective on the table. host:jim laurie, executive consultant from c c t v -- next is a republican caller from oklahoma caller: i watch cc tv a lot. cnn is more to the left and fox news is more to the right.

i like its perspective on everything and shows why more of what is going on around the world. it shows more about syria and iran that our newschannel do. my question is more to do with humanity. can you comment on that? does anybody really need that much money? if i had that much money, i would be the biggest lender preston the world. -- the biggest philanthropist in the world. guest: i'm not sure i can't comment on individual wealth and whether it is good or not to

have $50 billion in your pocket. it prompts me to make a few comments about the chinese position in the world. everybody comments on china be a america is bs rigid biggest credit holder, holding $1.20 trillion in u.s. treasurys. the chinese hope through media to be able to explain this rising power that china is. i think they are quite genuine in wanting to reach out and try to find better understandings and a whole list of issues that may separate china and america. i think the chinese become quite alarmed when china becomes a political football, particularly this election year and one candidate or another takes the issue of u.s.-china trade and turns it into a political issue.

one of the stories we are beginning to focus on at the american operation of cc tv is chinese investment in america. given the size of gary condit, is really very small. it is only about $5 billion of direct investment into the united states. there is a lot of good reason why this should increase -- why the chinese want to increase. the other day, we had the mayor of washington. he has just returned, vincent gray, just returned from what -- from china seeking more investment in washington, d.c. from china. host: we watched that segment yesterday and we saw jessica stone, an american reporter, doing that story. does the story get at the complexity and how nervous are actions them -- anxious americans feel?

guest: i certainly hope we do. this is early days and i cannot emphasize that there are still developing programming. we hope to go to four hours toward the end of the year or early next year. we are refining the kind of reports and still hiring people. , the numbers of reporters that will be reporting to our news de in washington. it will be something like 35 different reporters all over. we have just taken on people in los angeles, san francisco, houston, texas and the miami so we are developing all of this. at the combination of exploring these issues and having a fair amount of time to devote to this, will eventually allied affairs. investment in the