Media Dilemma - Chinese Style
A few years ago in Beijing, books written and published by well-known Chinese journalists/television anchors appeared to be a trend.
One such book was Bai Yansong's (白岩松, pictured) 痛并快乐着 (roughly translated as Concurrently Pained and Happy), which was published in 2000. Bai was a television journalist/anchor for China's Central Television (CCTV).
Personally, I did not think the content was so riveting that it merited close to almost 400 pages. There were simply too many lengthy narratives detailing what the writer did while going places and covering events as a journalist/anchor.
But some of Bai's accounts depicting media dilemmas - Chinese style - were fairly interesting.
For example, Bai spoke of how his team filmed and highlighted the extreme poverty yet diligence of a school girl Xiao Xiangli (肖想莉), who was abandoned and raised by blind foster parents in Wuhan (武汉).
After the story was aired on national television in 1995, help and monetary assistance poured in from all over China. In the school that Xiao attended, slogans such as "learn from Lei Feng (雷锋), and learn from Xiao Xiangli" were displayed, where students were exhorted to learn from both the revolutionary hero and Xiao. The family that once suffered from dire poverty also began to witness drastic material improvements to their lives.
Yet, as Bai observed, Xiao's sudden shot to fame had changed the once simple school girl. When interviewed by journalists later on, Xiao apparently "knew how to tell the story in such a way so as to elicit sympathy from others." And since Xiao became accustomed to opening up envelopes containing money from well-wishers, "she became visibly unhappy if the envelopes contained no cash."
Bai said the initial intention of highlighting Xiao's case was to highlight the plight of less fortunate children, and also out of "love and concern for the child." But later on, Bai wondered if their good intentions had been misplaced, and if the media publicity had inadvertently "harmed and damaged the child."
Bai added that he felt a sense of anguish when he discovered that Xiao later left school to make her fortune "down south." Bai wondered if the media publicity had altered Xiao's nature, and set her on an entirely different course in life.
But that is precisely the power, and dilemma, of the media - whether in China, or anywhere else in the world.
One such book was Bai Yansong's (白岩松, pictured) 痛并快乐着 (roughly translated as Concurrently Pained and Happy), which was published in 2000. Bai was a television journalist/anchor for China's Central Television (CCTV).
Personally, I did not think the content was so riveting that it merited close to almost 400 pages. There were simply too many lengthy narratives detailing what the writer did while going places and covering events as a journalist/anchor.
But some of Bai's accounts depicting media dilemmas - Chinese style - were fairly interesting.
For example, Bai spoke of how his team filmed and highlighted the extreme poverty yet diligence of a school girl Xiao Xiangli (肖想莉), who was abandoned and raised by blind foster parents in Wuhan (武汉).
After the story was aired on national television in 1995, help and monetary assistance poured in from all over China. In the school that Xiao attended, slogans such as "learn from Lei Feng (雷锋), and learn from Xiao Xiangli" were displayed, where students were exhorted to learn from both the revolutionary hero and Xiao. The family that once suffered from dire poverty also began to witness drastic material improvements to their lives.
Yet, as Bai observed, Xiao's sudden shot to fame had changed the once simple school girl. When interviewed by journalists later on, Xiao apparently "knew how to tell the story in such a way so as to elicit sympathy from others." And since Xiao became accustomed to opening up envelopes containing money from well-wishers, "she became visibly unhappy if the envelopes contained no cash."
Bai said the initial intention of highlighting Xiao's case was to highlight the plight of less fortunate children, and also out of "love and concern for the child." But later on, Bai wondered if their good intentions had been misplaced, and if the media publicity had inadvertently "harmed and damaged the child."
Bai added that he felt a sense of anguish when he discovered that Xiao later left school to make her fortune "down south." Bai wondered if the media publicity had altered Xiao's nature, and set her on an entirely different course in life.
But that is precisely the power, and dilemma, of the media - whether in China, or anywhere else in the world.
posted by Maria Siow @ 2:48 PM
0 comments
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home