The routine and plan for the Olympic torch relay in San Francisco had to be diverted due to various disruptions. Surprisingly, a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) anchorman roared with laughter when reading this news.
The disrupted torch relay may have hurt some of the audience deeply, while driving others wild with joy. That's normal. But it is a humiliating moment for a professional newsperson to react with laughter inside a live studio, because professional newscasters always claim to be "objective and impartial".
This kind of laughter would be criticized as "far from professional" if cited in any western journalism textbook. I don’t know what exactly caused his laughter, but it was clear he showed his schadenfreudes by saying: "(the disrupted torch relay) embarrassed the IOC, embarrassed the Chinese government, and embarrassed San Francisco."
What exactly embarrassed the Olympic torch relay? The organizers in San Francisco neither feared the "peaceful demonstrators", nor worried about those welcoming it. So what's the concern all about? The potential violence! When such violence humiliates the Olympic spirit, laughter of this sort makes me shudder.
Any action favoring, tolerating and instigating violence breaches the bottom line of any civilized society. I couldn't imagine that the presenter from the BBC would still roar with laugher if somebody were to attack the Olympic torch or tried to conduct terrorist attacks when London holds the Olympic in 2012.
What has confused me is the continuous, similar "laughter" among the British media for nearly one month, from the Lhasa Riots to the Olympic Torch Relay. When the Olympic torch arrived in London, the protestor who grabbed the torch was "favored" by the British media; yet so little effort to blame the mob for killing innocent citizens in Tibet was pointed out.
In China, anyone who wants to make news has been, is and will be notified with the basic principle of "true, objective and impartial" in the news-making. Like every young Chinese newsperson I have studied with great admiration those exemplars in the western media, including the British ones because I know China needs to learn advanced technologies and gain management experience from abroad, with news-making being no exception.
The Chinese media and western media, of course, will differ according to different contexts. When my Chinese friends cannot understand why the coverage about China in the western media is always "negative", I've always explained to them in detail regarding the characteristics of western media reporting. For instance, dog biting man is not news, but man biting dog is news.
The Chinese media and the western ones differ, but the basic principle and ethical issues in professional norms cannot differ. Shamefully, there have been filled too many unconfirmed items in some British media, too many actions trying to intentionally dodge the facts and too many journalists who have switched the news plate into a comment plate, some adhering to an extremely vituperative style. All of these incidents have startled every Chinese trying to learn from the British media.
When a Chinese student voluntarily welcoming the Olympic torch in London was interviewed to relate his experience, what he iterated and what he showed the most concern about was the "unfair coverage by some western media". No wonder.
(China News Service by Li Peng, translated by China.org.cn, April 14, 2008)