By Charlie Xu

Some of China's top Web companies are turning to traditional forums to highlight their importance as news outlets.

"Off-line" forums are a prime example. In the past, Web companies used such events to promote products or discuss professional topics, such as investment and finance. But recently, such forums have been used to discuss topical issues in the news.

According to some media watchers, these events may not only serve to draw attention to the Web sites, but also may help them compete with traditional media on their own turf.

For example, Sohu, one of the most popular commercial portal sites in China, invited five experts in international relations this fall to discuss the new model for China's diplomacy.

It was the ninth event in the Sohu Observer Forum series, which started in 2008.

"[A forum] is good because it doesn't cost much and has a good effect," said Liu Jing, chief editor of the news center at Sohu.

The biggest three commercial portal sites – Sohu, Sina and 163.com – hold hundreds of such forums every year. For example, Sina held a CEO forum this fall, and 163.com hosted an education industry forum during the same month. Portals are online entry points for readers looking for a variety of content.

Sohu's Observer Forum was designed to be somewhat different from traditional off-line events.

"It is an event that can generate perspectives," Liu said. Previously, Sohu's forums concentrated on special areas such as finance, investment, advertising or real estate. But the Observer Forum series focuses on journalism issues, including those related to the Olympics, public policy and immigrants.

"Sohu is not the first Web site that discussed news issues, but it was unusual to invite so many experts at one time and hold a series of forums," said Zhou Qingan, chief researcher of the institute of public diplomacy in the School of Journalism and Communication at Tsinghua University.

Zhou was invited to a Sohu Observer forum event as a guest speaker.

"Generally, portal sites will invite no more than three guest speakers and have a Web cast," Zhou said. "But Sohu did it off-line totally, and invited much more traditional media."

According to Liu, generally one-third of the audience members at the forums were journalists. Many filed stories on the events, and Sohu forums have received extensive coverage from Xinhua news agency, the biggest official agency in China.

Ifeng.com, the online news Web site of Ifeng TV, published a recruitment advertisement earlier this year seeking online news editors.

"Good skills in planning off-line events" was part of the requirement.

Most of Sohu's off-line events are run by one or two departments in the company, but the Sohu Observer Forum series was a company-level event defined as a "branding program" for Sohu when it was first held.

"Events about news issues can show the media character of Sohu exactly," Liu said. "These events let people know that Sohu is not a company only making games, it is also a news platform."

 Marketing materials prepared for the conference mention that in this Internet era, Sohu has started to play a role as mainstream online media.

Zhou said there are three reasons why online media attaches so much importance to off-line news events. It is a good method of branding, a marketing technique that seeks to identify a product or service in the public's mind. Also, he said, by discussing issues in open forums, Sohu can produce "secondary news products" – such as audience reaction and opinion on issues – that prove Sohu's ability to present news.

Such a forum is also a way for a Web company to improve its relations with traditional media, academic scholars and public readers, Zhou said. In addition, the forums present a way to discuss important topics in depth.

"The world being flooded with information has generated a great demand for in-depth comments to help people understand what is happening every day," Zhou said.

However, in an interview, Liu referred to "proving Sohu's media character" and to "being approved of by traditional media" more than three times.

Another factor may be that as news media, commercial portal sites do not yet have a clear place in China. A forum for "mainstream online media" was held in Xiamen, Fujian Province, this fall. But none of the three biggest commercial portal sites – Sohu, Sina and 163.com – were invited, for none of them is considered to be "news media" with the right to report on public events.

According to Chinese government policy, Web sites can only reprint news stories provided by traditional media. They cannot conduct original reporting. However, Web sites started by traditional media are an exception. Online news media invited to the mainstream online media forum all belong to traditional media, such as xinhuanet.com, which is owned by Xinhua News Agency, and people.com. cn, which is owned by the People's Daily newspaper, the parent of the Global Times.

That leaves the new media sites out of the loop.

Liu admitted that commercial portal sites such as Sohu are still trying to get recognition from traditional media.

"There is an index called ‘media landing' which measures how many times a Web site has been referred to in traditional media during a month," Liu said.

"Media landing" is an important element when a Web site is evaluated, according to Liu.

According to Zhou, "media landing" measurements show that commercial portal sites still do not enjoy the confidence of traditional media outlets.

Because of the government policy barring Web sites from original reporting, the commercial portal sites "are far from the center of the discourse power of news reporting," Zhou said.

Jin Jianbin, president of the School of Journalism and Communication at Tsinghua University, said the off-line news events are a way for commercial portal sites to join in the process of producing news content.

"Both Sohu and Sina are famous as news portals. However, they don't have their own news content," Jin said. "They must have realized that depending on traditional media exclusively could not be for a lifetime. So they're trying to have a special way to produce content."

Zhou shares Jin's view.

"On the border of the content-producing process, commercial portal sites are trying hard to approach the center of discourse power with secondary news products," Zhou said.

Both Zhou and Jin agree that as a way to join in the news content producing process, off-line news events will continue to be important factors, because they serve the needs of both public readers and commercial portal sites.

However, Zhou expressed concern.

"This is an effective way indeed in the short-term. However, [secondary news products] lack freshness and originality in content, so there could be problems in the long-term," Zhou said.