"President Liu Qi made a commitment to the world media at the 2006 World Broadcaster Meeting in August; but what he said recently at the world press briefing was about laws and regulations," said Sun Weijia, director of the Media Operation Department of BOCOG.

During the First World Press Briefing for the 2008 Olympic Games, in late September, BOCOG President Liu Qi announced new regulations regarding news coverage by foreign media during the Olympic Games in line with Olympic practices. The regulations will be released and take effect in 2007, after a legislative review.

"The legislative procedures usually take a very long time in every country, but we have promised to issue the regulations in a very short time," Sun said.

According to Sun, Chinese government departments concerned have taken great efforts to work out services for the foreign media who will cover the Olympic Games in Beijing and even in the rest of China.

"The new regulations will mark great progress concerning the management of foreign media in China," Sun said. "The foreign media will enjoy press freedom in China as long as they obey Chinese laws and regulations. There will be no restrictions in what they report or who they interview. I believe after the new regulations are issued, the foreign media will work under the same conditions as they have in all previous Games."

To offer satisfying services to the journalists from all over the world, Sun's department has put in a lot of work in the past few years. During the one-week briefing, they updated the world media on the preparatory work for the Beijing Olympics, media operations in particular, and heard opinions and suggestions. They also arranged city tours and venue tours for the representatives at the meeting.

"With the venue tour and the presentations, I feel very confident that the Beijing Games are going to be special," said Robert Condron, director of Media Services of the United States Olympic Committee. "The venues are amazing for every sport. The people are very helpful and very professional. They want to make the Games good."

The approval from the world media greatly relieved the Beijing organizers.

"After the briefing, all the attendees said their expectations about the Beijing Games had been raised and they all used words like 'phenomenal success' and 'huge achievement' to describe the briefing as well as the preparatory work of the Games," said Sun. "Such high expectations will push us to keep working hard."

Media services were tested at two events this year in Beijing and Qingdao, giving the department some much needed experience.

"The test events were good opportunities for us to assess our plans and through the events we found that most of our plans are practical," said Sun. "But we still have to improve our news services at the Games time."

As the department to facilitate all the media that cover the Games, the Media and Operation Department of BOCOG has 51 staff members. Almost all of the leadership of the group has experienced working in the media, including Sun himself.

"My experience working as a journalist has helped me a lot in the present work since I can communicate with reporters without difficulty and I can put myself in their position," said Sun, 44, who used to be a journalist at Xinhua. "But the change from being a reporter to a person that serves the media is a great challenge to me as well."

"In the lead up to the Games time, we need more people with experience in the media, cross-culture communication and fluent English language ability," Sun said. "To provide professional Olympic news service, we also welcome experienced foreign staff to come. The team for the media services at Games time will surely be an international group."

In its next step, the department will focus on implementing the plans.

"We are now at the stage of carrying out the plans and further improving the plans," Sun said. "We will go on to work closely with the media from all over the world to assess their needs and improve our work."