(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-06-21 00:05

BEIJING -- Chinese President Hu Jintao on Friday hailed the 60th anniversary of the People's Daily, the voice of the Communist Party of China (CPC), and extended his salute to all Chinese journalists.

After inspecting the People's Daily, Hu encouraged reporters and editors to innovate their reporting styles and bring into a full play the paper's leading role.

He sent his greetings to the paper's overseas correspondents and asked them to link the transformation of the international situation with China's reform and opening-up. This was to improve the quality and influence of the paper's international reporting. It has 33 overseas bureaus.

Hu, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, visited people.com.cn, the online arm of the daily newspaper and a leading news portal in China. Over 11 years of development, the website now received about 100 million visits daily.

He then held his first live online chat with netizens on Friday, telling them divergent voices could be heard in the country.

Hu, who said he sometimes found time to surf the web, said in his chat with netizens, "I try to know through the Internet what people are concerned about and what they think (on a wide range of topics)."

"I'm willing to get an idea on people's complaints of and proposals to the work of our Party and the government.

"The Internet is an important space to know about people's thoughts," said Hu, who revealed the BBS of people.com.cn was his must-visit while surfing the web.

The "BBS" he mentioned was the Qiangguo Forum, with the literal meaning in Chinese of "powering the nation." The virtual-reality forum was initiated by netizens to express anger at the US-led NATO forces bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999. Since then, the forum has been one of the most popular venues for netizens to speak out.

Hu's four minute live chat with netizens highlighted the recent efforts of the government to directly contact the people.

He told the paper's staff that with the rapid social and economic development it's more convenient and faster now for people to obtain and spread information and the role of public opinion was more significant than ever.

He asked newsmen to stick to the CPC principle, serve the people, constantly reform to enhance influence and strengthen the use of new media in their daily work.