On March 7, CCTV host Bai Yansong said that farmers' monthly pensions of just over 100 yuan are clearly insufficient, noting that multiple committee members and delegates are proposing to raise them by 20 yuan per year starting now, so that farmers' pensions double in ten years.
Bai Yansong interviewed Liang Wannian on the program News 1+1, raising nine questions about the economic cost and necessity of the dynamic zero-COVID policy; the program only arranged for Liang Wannian alone to answer and reiterated the policy's rationality.
When Bai Yansong responded to students' questions about their future and employment pressure during a speech at a university, he rhetorically listed hypothetical scenarios such as low housing prices and being able to find a job easily. The remarks triggered widespread mockery among netizens online the following spring.
Minister of Human Resources and Social Security Yin Weimin introduced the gradual delayed retirement policy at the Two Sessions press conference. That evening, CCTV's "Two Sessions 1+1" made it a key topic, and Bai Yansong explained it on the program as an inevitable trend whose benefits outweigh its drawbacks.
Bai Yansong invited scholars on the program News 1+1 to discuss the delayed retirement policy then under study by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, sparking public debate over pension fairness and youth employment.
Bai Yansong resigned from his positions as producer of News Meeting Room, China Weekly, and Time and Space Link because he felt that the producer role made his expression mediocre and led to self-censorship, while retaining his role as host.
At the 2001 annual meeting of CCTV's "Tell It Like It Is" program team, a satirical comedy short, "Division of the Family in October," was produced, in which colleagues openly mocked Bai Yansong's rationalizing, brow-furrowing, preachy style by remixing Soviet films and their character names.
“Oriental Horizon” officially went on air, and Bai Yansong, from a temporary planner, was pushed in front of the camera, ushering in a period of public opinion supervision later known as the “mini spring” of CCTV news.