Jing Yidan, the Face of China's Flagship Investigative News Program, Dies at 71
Jing Yidan, the anchor who fronted 'Focus Report' — China's most influential investigative television program — for two decades, died on September 13 at 71, three months after a brain hemorrhage struck while she was recording a show in her hometown. Her farewell note, 'Thank this world, for letting me pass through,' became the day's most-shared post across Chinese platforms.
Jing Yidan, one of the most recognizable faces of Chinese television news, died on September 13 in Beijing at the age of 71. Her daughter, Wang Erqing, announced the death in an obituary posted that morning: Jing had suffered a sudden brain hemorrhage in June while in Harbin, her hometown, and had been hospitalized in Beijing since. The notice carried a farewell line in her own handwriting: "Thank this world, for letting me pass through" (感谢这世界，让我走过).
For readers outside China, Jing's name is inseparable from Focus Report (焦点访谈), the prime-time CCTV program launched in 1994 that became the closest thing the country had to a national watchdog broadcast. For two decades its segments exposed local corruption, unsafe products and bureaucratic abuse to an audience in the hundreds of millions, and Jing — who joined the program at 40 — was its steadiest presence. She also co-anchored the annual "Touching China" person-of-the-year broadcast with her longtime colleague Bai Yansong for 18 editions, and hosted the live broadcasts marking the Hong Kong and Macau handovers.
Her career followed a path that has itself become a touchstone in Chinese discussions of working life. She was admitted to graduate school at 28, created Yidan Topic (一丹话题) at 38 — the first Chinese TV program named after its host — and joined Focus Report at 40. Asked years later about entering the flagship program in middle age, she brushed the question aside: "Who counts the growth rings one by one?" (谁去一圈一圈数年轮啊). In interviews she summarized her professional creed as "amplifying the voices of the weak" (放大弱者的声音), and she won the Golden Mic (金话筒), China's top award for broadcasters, three times in a row.
The details of her final months were laid out in the posts that followed the announcement. On May 30 she gave the graduation speech at Peking University's HSBC Business School — her last public address. On June 17, her account's final video showed her visiting Cai Lei, the former JD.com executive who leads China's best-known campaign against ALS, to talk about his book Believe; the two arranged to meet readers online at the summer solstice. The next day she was photographed recording a program on a bridge over the Songhua River in Harbin — her last public appearance. Days later she collapsed.
Bai Yansong, her co-anchor of more than 30 years, told the Beijing News: "Jing fell while working in her hometown, and fixed herself at her most beautiful age. This life — worth it" (这一生，值). The story dominated Baidu's search board, led Caixin and Hong Kong's HK01, and by evening Zhihu's most-read media question was asking what she had meant to the industry. A Beijing Daily post on her death was shared more than 5,000 times within hours.
Her social media account still ends with the June 17 visit to Cai Lei, closing on the appointment the two made for the summer solstice — to read his book together with their readers, online.