After the recent mine casualty happened on 6th August in Shandong province's Zhaoyuan city in China, the news already captured the attention of several mainstream media in the world. When comparing the content of the two relevant stories of AFP and Xinhua News Agency, interesting findings appear.
Firstly, "16" killed workers are both mentioned in the titles as the numbers of death are in focus because of the prominence in news values. However, Xinhua News Agency stresses on the accomplishment of this rescue. What it wants to say is that it had rescued most people even though the "underground blaze initially trapped more than 300", and "the miners appeared in good health". Most importantly, it delivers the information that "mining casualties in China have been declining lately due to strengthened safety measures", although "the country is still plagued by mining accidents". Thus, even there were several accidents took place recently, the numbers of death "were much lower than those from a year earlier according to the official statistics".
But in AFP’s story, it emphasizes that "the latest in a series of accidents in China's notoriously dangerous mining industry" by offering a set of data about how many workers were killed in similar accidents in "earlier this week", "Tuesday", "Late Monday","Last weekend". Therefore, AFP conclude that "the government regularly pledges to clean up safety problems in its mines but deadly accidents are still routine." It uses the terms "'serious' work safety situation" said by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao while providing another ironic data – "Last year 2,631 miners were killed in China", quoting the opinion of an independent labour groups that "the actual figure could be much higher as many accidents are covered up to avoid costly shutdowns."
Obviously, the news angles of these two stories seem significantly different. The AFP’s aim is to give the audiences the image of "China's mining industry is plagued by lax regulation, corruption and inefficiency" while Xinhua News Agency in order to make a picture of how Chinese government and organizations work hard to solve the "serious work safety situation". It is not hard to know the main news value in western media is to disclose the downside of society while Chinese one is to create a inclination to goodness, like what I mentioned in this blog entry headline.
Relevant articles’ links
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/china-gold-mine-fire-kills-16-workers-20100807-11p5m.html
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-08/07/c_13434226.htm
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteYou have written something I'd like to say first: comparison. It always has so many discussions or arguments between Chinese media and Western media based on different cultures and national conditions. It appears more in the hard news. Expecting your more writings :)
ReplyDelete