Eric's Beijing Diary

China is abuzz with talk and news about the snowstorm that has stranded close to a million passengers. I was listening this afternoon to a press conference where foreign reporters were grilling the panel. The government seems to see the importance of being very open about the disaster, if perhaps a bit defensive. Actually, I don't blame them this time, because the cynicism so typical in the western media would perhaps be a bit irritating to a government that is dealing with a storm the like of which China has not seen for at least 50 years.

Sometimes I wonder about the balance. Last night I was watching a news report about the thousands of stranded passengers. They showed a clip of a medical team examining people on a bus, some of whom had colds. Then they showed a clip of a police officer handing some cookies to a truck driver. Then they guy narrating concluded by saying that everyone had warm hearts because of all that the government was doing to help them. It was a nice story, designed to make us all feel good, but it wasn't really journalism. In China, you can't turn to another channel and get another view of the story, so there is really no competition to ensure quality, or provide a challenge to accuracy. I see this as a shortcoming in the Chinese media. But I certainly don't prefer the kind of caustic cynicism I saw in today's press conference. That isn't truth either.