News Background: Bill Gates and Warren Buffett host a charity banquet on Wednesday (29th Sep) with China's super-rich in Beijing.
That's the Chinese news when you see the sentences like this - "Charity banquet of China's super-rich opens east-west dialogue". A typical Chinese media usually use the official language to point out the meanings of an event directly, even the event is not a political one.
Obviously, every media interpret this news differently by using different resources from the meeting and interviews.
In Xinhua news, it used the interview materials from the son of Warren Buffett. And in the second half of the news, the journalist demonstrate the different attitudes from Chinese super-rich people. All the contents showed the different opinions from the east and west cultures, which matched the angle it said in the headline.
The AFP news gave the headline "China's super-rich banquet exceeds hopes" by quoting the saying of Buffett. And the entire article is made up of the sayings from Buffett and Gates. Some quoting terms were revised and reconstructed by the journalist. The last sentence selected from the state-run Global Times showed the attitude of this media as well.
The BBC news showed its rigorous style of work. As the spectator, the journalist use "perhaps" to express the objective of this dinner. And he use the materials from "one of those invited to dine". So this article is like a profile story from the angle of Chinese philanthropist.
The AP making this news much more comprehensive. The journalist use the resources from the Buffett and Gates, and the different part of Chinese people whatever they attended the dine. Therefore, it represented some of the attitudes from the American sides, and offered the Chinese opinions as well.
Not like the TODAY news which just use the interview materials from one person - the CEO of Far Eastern Group, the only goal is to express the idea about "China not so charitable about Buffett, Gates". So even the journalist use the records from the Xinhua news agency, the Global Times and the state media, they all serviced for this angle. Although that's good for promoting a story, I don't think it is enough objective.
Anyway, every journalist can make their own story by choosing different resources. But I should mention that, fairness and objective would be the most important elements they should consider about firstly.
Relative links:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/indepth/2010-09/29/c_13535364.htm
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g7K0jscDmeKr1xSno8V0c6Z54z1Q?docId=CNG.164caa25dc9f9cd73359c4be468ff1ec.6e1
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hN2WLoWY2aKjHObeYbB9EWr15P1AD9II33480?docId=D9II33480
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11429141
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/01/world/asia/01china.html?src=mv
http://www.todayonline.com/World/EDC100930-0000099/China-not-so-charitable-about-Buffett,-Gates
Hi Laura,
ReplyDeleteGreat blog! I like how you have incorporated various mainstream news websites such as the BBC and NY Times for comparison in your analysis. I thought that was very interesting :)
hoho~ I hope you like it~ I think the news story from the mainstream news websites would be more powerful when I do the comparison..... ahaha~
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