Sunday, August 26, 2007

I refer to the article titled “Beijing bans media from bridge collapse site”, from The Straits Times, august 18 2007.

The article describes the collapse of a bridge in Shanxi province, China, possibly due to a truck overloaded with iron powder. What made this accident worse was the fact that Chinese authorities have banned state media from reporting on the collapse, with “local officials punching journalists and chasing them from the scene”. The bridge was under construction at the time of the collapse, which left at least 47 people dead, and making it ‘one of the worst building accidents in China in recent years’.

This article reveals several problems, not the least of which is the one of media coverage. The state media were “ordered not to send reporters there or gather news…but to rely solely on reports by the government’s Xinhua news agency.” By restricting the information the public get about important events, such as this accident, the officials are essentially depriving the public of information on events. To make things worse, local officials are also reputed to be hostile to reporters, whose duty is to bring information to the public. Even if the issue is sensitive, reporters have an obligation to report on them for the public; and the government has no right to deny the public such information.

The accident has also raised questions about ‘shoddy building’ and corruption among officials and contractors. By maintaining a stranglehold on the information coming through to the public, the officials have only fuelled these suspicions. The government is supposed to be the shepherd of the public, and in times of disaster, instead of helping the situation, the shepherd instead covers up the actual extent of the damage. What should have been done, instead of driving off the reporters and journalists with aggressive force, was instead to inform these journalists of certain constraints the officials or locals face, and to kindly ask them to report merely on the vital information, and not to speculate on certain issues. At most, the government should examine the reports or articles written and inform the press of what should be changed before they are published.

The press still has a job to deliver news to the public, not just for China, but to the international community, and by resorting to assaulting the press, they have only destroyed the “responsible, concerned image China’s leadership has tried to portray publicly in the wake of the accident”. The government might have some constraints regarding the disaster, and there is nothing wrong with having the government’s news agency broadcast reports from the government regarding the disaster; but denying the information to the other state media, and attacking them was a really big mistake. Trust takes a long time to build, but can be lost in an instant. The government has a responsibility to the people, and has to have the people’s trust in order to function. By taking such actions, they have really shaken the trust the people have in them. While the Central Propaganda Department has a job to do as well, and has the power to issue such bans, they should accommodate the press, and at the least explain the reasons behind issuing the ban.