Recently the Shijiazhuang municipal government publicly apologized for the Sanlu powdered milk incident. The city received a report from Sanlu at the beginning of August about the problem, but “did not entirely comprehend,” “did not fully estimate the consequences,” and “dealt with it inadequately.” Once again, in order to protect local enterprise and control “negative influences,” the city government allowed more than a month to go by without reporting it, causing the state of affairs to creep towards a stage where it could not be managed. The entire powdered milk crisis demonstrates that food safety is obviously the moral responsibility of the company and it is the government’s duty to supervise. However, this incident also proves that when we cannot rely on local governments and enterprises, on whom can we rely? Why, when the cases of infant kidney stones appeared before August, did we not hear a single media report? Just think, if the Sanlu milk powder problem had been reported at the time it first appeared, would it still have caused so many infants to become sick and even die? Would the Shijiazhuang government still “not entirely comprehend” and “not fully estimate the consequences”? Would city leaders, because they “seriously affected the party’s and the city’s image,” have lost their posts? Based on the reasons revealed by the city government spokesperson, there were no media reports about the problem because Sanlu “asked the city government to strengthen its control and coordination of the media,” so the city government obviously complied. Because all over the country people did not realize the problem with powdered milk, finally today everyone has seen or experienced an episode of the problem themselves.

© Liu Yong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: food safety, media supervision, Sanlu
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I am the father of a five-year-old, and I have been closely following the outbreak of hand foot and mouth disease in Fuyang, Anhui province since the first media reports. And I have logged onto the local Internet media sites but something abnormal caught my attention.

For all of April, Fuyang citizens were panicking under the wrap of the mysterious epidemic. But until April 28, I didn’t see a single mention of it on the local news section in Fuyang News Online. There were two articles on that day, respectively headlined “Our City Fully Employs Prevention and Treatment Campaign on the Disease” and “Song Weiping and Sun Yunfei Make Visits to Villages Inspecting Disease Prevention and Control Work.” Then the next day there were more news posts, but mostly propaganda sounding items like the two aforementioned.

The reality is, unlike the glorious epidemic fighting scenes being trumpeted by local media, Fuyang press failed to be a “whistle-blower” who alarms the society. Instead they covered up local government’s neglect, painted a false picture and showed indifference in the face of life-threatening tragedies.

But Fuyang is not alone. In real life, some local governments use the media like playing with a toy. Local media outlets are nothing but a mass printer for government documents and absolutely lose their role as a public opinion watchdog. This is indeed a tragedy for an underdeveloped city and its people. I hope that we should let small towns and cities become a blind spot in media supervision.

© Michael Zhao for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Fuyang, hand foot and mouth disease, local media, media supervision, transparency
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