Italpress and CCTV Sign Content-Sharing Agreement

On May 28, 2025, Italian news agency Italpress, based in Palermo, announced a content-sharing agreement with CCTV+ (央視國際視訊通訊社), the international video news agency of China Media Group (中央廣播電視總台), which operates under the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Propaganda Department. Under the agreement, Italpress will distribute its multimedia content in China while incorporating CCTV+ footage into its own coverage for subscribers in Italy and abroad. Italpress founder Gaspare Borsellino called the agreement “an important and exciting international partnership” that would help the agency reach new markets. CCTV+ director Li Xia (李霞) said the partnership reflected “growing mutual trust and cooperation between Chinese and Italian media,” and that both sides would pursue “authoritative, credible, and internationally influential journalistic content,” a characterization consistent with CCP framing of state media as objective and professional — even as the same CCP discourse emphasizes the primacy of the Party leadership over media and public opinion, following hardline comments on media policy made by Xi Jinping in February 2016.