me, many people in China decided to become journalists because theyhave neither brains for math and logic nor talents for beingdoctors and engineers.
The moment for me to decide becoming a journalist came in thesummer of 1982 when I just graduated from university and wasassigned to work with the Chinese Academy ofSciences.
One day, Prof. Qian Sanqiang, father of Chinese atomic bomb, askedme to go to the India embassy, acting as an interpreter at thedinner. During the dinner, the Indian ambassador stood up and gavea speech. He said,” standing in front of Prof. Qian Sanqiang, Ifeel so humble. Mr. Qian knows everything about nothing but I knownothing about everything.”
I was totally confused and did not know how to translate thesentence into Chinese.
Later, a particle physicist explained to me that nothing is darkmatter. Dark matter is inferred to exist from gravitational effectson background radiation. Dark matter constitutes 80% of the matterin the universe, while ordinary matter makes up only20%.
At that moment, it is not the Indian ambassador who felt so humblein front of science, but it is me, a self-conceited young man wasshaking with humbling in front of science.
My fiasco in translating the word “nothing” was poignantly adecisive moment for me to leave the scientific community and enterthe non-scientific world of journalism.
It is indeed a non-scientific and even pseudo-science ifyoufollowChinese newspapers or watch TV lately. The Chinese news media aresuffering seven sins currently.
One, a Chinese journalist job is like seven blind men touching anelephant. A blind man touching the elephant’s ear reports, “Theelephant is a big ear.” Another blind man touching the elephant’stask reports, “The elephant is a big nose.” Another blind mantouching its mouth reports, “The elephant is a big mouth.” Anotherblind man touching its buttock reports, “The elephant is a bigass.” All the blind men give correct descriptions with their ownexperiences. But they are totally wrong with the truthful completepicture of the elephant.
Two,today’s Chinese society being divided into different interestsgroups fighting for political powers, the media have become apropaganda weapon serving different political and economic camps.These mouthpieces rely upon the “worthy sources” from theirpolitical camps for reporting. For example, the media love victimstories. But in most victim stories, the victim should be in “ourcamp”. The victim should not be in “our enemy’scamp”.
Three, most media only seeks the newsworthy truth and give littleattention to news unworthy truth. The newsworthy story thatcaptures attention and sells the newspaper is worthy truth. War isworthy truth and peace is not worthy truth. Dialogue journalism isalwaysdefeated by war journalism in getting into the headlines of thepress.
Four, many Chinese journalists act like a judge of truth. Reportingthe truth has always been a high-sounding motto for bothjournalists and journalism educators. But who give the media theright to be the arbitrator? Do journalists have the scientificability to judge the truth or report a truthfulstory?
Five, in news coverage of big events in China today, reporters areworking under the pressure and control from their audiences who aretheir readers, advertisers, investors and their political boss. Thejournalists cannot be free from pleasing their audience, theiradvertiser and their boss with their accepted opinions and the newsstories and news events they anticipate, as an old saying goes, “Ifit pleases, it leads.”
Six, many Chinese media pretend to be neutral. But this so-calledobjective reporting is pseudo balance and pseudo neutrality. If youwatch some Chinese TV talk shows, you see those star TV anchorsinvite their imagined enemy single-handedly to their talk shows andput him or her as a target of being ridiculed or shouted at bytheir audiences to achieve dramatic effect. Good journalism meansthe news media give equal broadcast time and newspaper space to thereporters from your enemy's camp so that your audiences will get toknow how their imagined enemies are talking and thinking. But inChinese journalism practice, no one could survive by being neutral.Chinese editors know it too well that that it is a suicide to beobjective or neutral in reporting because all media, whether beingCCTV, Phoenix TV or Southern Weekend, they must meet the needs oftheir audiences, financial and political supporters with theiranticipated news and views.
Seven, inan informed society, people have the right to know who is behindthe media in creating and spreading the rumors and to whosebenefits the public anger being manipulated. But in China today,many media are run like a mafia society. You never know who isbehind the media. There is no media transparency inChina.
Many journalists would argue that the goal of free press isreporting truth. But where is the truth in journalism? It is animpossible mission for the scientific-ignorant journalists toreport the truth, which perhaps only exist in theoreticalphysics. |
