Some accuse the program as serving more as a means for the party to divulge its political agenda rather than to examine the day's important news events.

[3] The Chinese name contains two words: "Xinwen" (新闻/新聞) meaning "news" and "Lianbo" (联播/聯播) closely translating to "joint broadcast" or "simulcast", referring to the fact that material is broadcast by all provincial and municipal television stations (usually their flagship channel) in China, which guarantee that audience could watch the programme by Terrestrial television all over the country.

[5] The programme consists of a daily news bulletin of approximately thirty minutes, beginning with the headlines and proceeding to detailed reports.

[6][8][clarification needed] The programme justifies its title with a comprehensive distribution system that has led the Washington Post to dub it "one of the world's most-watched news programs."

[1] What is the judgement for important news in the minds of many Chinese journalists working for the official media or for propaganda journalism today?

Xu Zhaorong, a reporter of Xinhua makes the following 14 observations (Symposium of Journalism 1998): Effectively, Xinwen Lianbo is a mouthpiece for the party and the state.

Therefore, the activities of the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party are almost always the first item, followed by reports on the members of the Politburo Standing Committee in rank order.

Around half of the programming on average is dedicated to political content: party announcements, government meetings, or leaders' activities.

Zhan Jiang, professor at China Youth University for Political Sciences, aptly summed up its content in three phrases: "The leaders are busy, the motherland is developing rapidly, other countries are in chaos.

"[14] On the one hand, it is the news source with the widest reach amongst China's large population,[15] and so it provides the Party with the opportunity to influence the masses.

The ranked shots of the Politburo Standing Committee indicate their relative power: "Each leader is allocated a certain number of seconds in front of the camera, Chinese media experts say, with the time for each one carefully regulated by the party propaganda department.

An example of this, the coverage of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre saw longtime anchors Du Xian and Xue Fei fired after they both "wore black and read the news more slowly than usual".

[16] ...[T]he main viewers are China's legions of government and party officials, particularly in the provinces, and businessmen who want to keep up with the policies and attitudes that will affect their ability to make money.All CCTV programmes are under commercial pressure, but Xinwen Lianbo is less-affected than most.

On 27 December 2007, Xinwen Lianbo aired a report about the wide and easy availability of explicit content on the internet.

The report appealed to juristic institutions and government to hurry to make relevant legislation in order to purify the internet environment.