China has entered a crucial period in its economic history, but many journalists are unclear about the key characteristics of what has come to be known as “the New Normal,” a top Chinese journalist told the eighth annual Tsinghua Business Journalism Forum hosted by the Tsinghua School of Journalism and Communication on May 22.

“Everybody speaks about the New Normal but few understand it,” said Pi Shuyi the director of the economic and social department of People’s Daily. “We should have a scientific understanding of the New Normal … We have to be very clear about this notion before we do the reporting.”

The annual Tsinghua conference brought together leading business journalists and professors from China and around the world to debate the meaning of “the New Normal” and to discuss ways to improve news coverage and college classes on the subject.

“What we are not lacking is information itself,” Wenzhao, deputy editor of the Economic Observer, told the journalism educators, business journalists and journalism students attending the forum. “We are lacking explanation. We have to build up our explanatory ability and insight.”

Chinese business journalists addressing the audience also included Lin Jianyang, foreign economics director of Xinhua News Agency, and Xiao Zhensheng, director of the economic news department at CCTV News.

Among the international journalism academics speaking at the conference were Robert Picard, Director of Research at the Reuters Institute in the Department of Politics and International Relations at University of Oxford (U.K.), Andrew Leckey, president of the Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism and Chair in Business Journalism at the Arizona State University Walter Cronkite School of Journalism (USA), Jane Sasseen, director of the McGraw Center for Business Journalism at the City of New York (USA) and a former visiting professor at Tsinghua University, and Rick Dunham, co-director of the Global Business Journalism Program and a visiting professor of multimedia business reporting and data journalism at Tsinghua.

Journalists for international publications who discussed the state of the Chinese economy included John Liu, editor-in-chief for the Greater China region for Bloomberg News, Lee Miller, a staff member for Bloomberg News and visiting professor in the Global Business Journalism Program at Tsinghua, Wang Feng, Chinese web editor of the Financial Times, and Pam Tobey, a longtime Washington Post information designer now working at Beijing Review.

Xinhua’s Lin Jianyang said Chinese journalists must learn to clearly explain the nation’s economy to a global audience.

“Overseas readers are quite lacking in information on the Chinese economy, so we should give it to them,” Lin said. “Some people ask what the ‘Old Normal’ is, so we have to do a lot of work to explain the ‘New Normal.’”

Lin encouraged Chinese journalists to “report Chinese stories with a global perspective and give the readers more background information.”

“Economic statistics may be boring, so we should tell the story through profiles,” he said. “I think we should report more about local stories to give an overview of China’s economy.”

Picard, a research fellow at Green Templeton College at Oxford and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.said the concept of “the New Normal” has been “somewhat confusing to the Western media.”

In Western media, “the New Normal was initially greeting as more of a slogan to excuse slower growth than a policy-driven change,” he said. “Later, covered linked underling changes in the Chinese economy with newer economic and industrial policy innovations.”

Picard, a specialist in media management, said the New Normal “a fundamental shift in the Chinese economy.”

“China’s policies are signaling that the large-scale, rapid development approaches are no longer as effective as in the past and that the government’s policy will be to seek new sources of growth,” he said.

Jane Sasseen, a former journalist for Business Week, Forbes, Yahoo News and other outlets, analyzed Western print and online media coverage of the Chinese economy. Shesaid four questions were repeatedly asked about “the New Normal” by publications such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times: “What is it? What does it mean for China’s economy? What does it mean for the U.S. and the rest of the global economy? And how difficult is it going to be to manage [for the Chinese government]?”

Western media have described an “economic downturn” and “crisis” in China and ask, “Can it have a soft landing after three decades of rapid growth?” Sasseen told the audience.

Leckey, a veteran academic who has been a news anchor for CNBC and a nationally syndicated business columnist, analyzed television and Internet video coverage of the New Normal. He said the issue of China’s slowing growth rate has “captured the world’s attention.” But he said that much of the television coverage is “not the thoughtful coverage” that is needed but is “short reviews of declining [economic] numbers” or a chorus of “I told you so” from skeptical experts.

Much of the TV coverage focuses on “how the New Normal will affect” viewers, he said.“Whatever China does will be watched closely by the rest of the world,” he told the audience.

During the conference, Chinese journalists suggested ways the media could better cover China’s economy. From the perspective of the People’s Daily, Pi said, the New Normal “is positive. It’s progress. It is achievement after 30 years of reform and opening up in China.”

Pi said it is “impossible to maintain double-digit growth in the Chinese economy.”He said the New Normal is a “progressive” policy and is “a long-term issue, not a short-term issue.”

“We are not in the New Normal,” he said. “We are still at the initial stage.”

Me of the Economic Observer said the New Normal is an era of “constantly changing” economics.

“The media should not use the old thoughts and old ways to report the New Normal,” he said. “We should have new and innovative ways to report on the economic situation in China.”

Xiao Zhensheng of CCTV said many business journalists were initially “puzzled” by the term “the New Normal” because it had widely used in the United States for the conditions facing Wall Street and the American economy after the financial collapse of 2008.

But the term took on a specific meaning in China after President Xi Jinping first used it in 2014 to describe the nation’s economy.

Xiao said the New Normal encompasses three key elements: a shift from “high to middle-high growth,” a fundamental restructuring of the economy, and a change in the driving force in the economy from resources to innovation. Under the New Normal, he said, the economy’s focus also would shift from exports to consumption.

“You have to have a deep understanding of the New Normal before you can report on it properly,” he said.

Xiao said Chinese journalists should explain the government’s policies to both national and international audiences.

“To the Western tradition, the news is neutral,” he said. “But for China, things are different.”

The daylong forum, held at the Tsinghua School of Journalism and Communication, was organized by Associate Professor Hang Min, co-director of the Tsinghua Global Business Journalism Program. Among top university officials who attended the conference and made remarks were Tsinghua University Vice President Xie Weihe, TSJC Administrative Dean Jin Jianbin, and Associate Deans Shi Anbin and Cui Baoguo.

“The Tsinghua Business Journalism Forum has grown from a workshop training business and journalism professors to a platform that bridges educational and industrial needs in the growing field of business journalism,” said Dr. Hang. “It has built itself as one of the leading brands in China as well as a major network for knowledge exchange home and abroad.”