In the International Herald Tribune, Howard French writes about a conversation he had with a Chinese colleague after the Sichuan earthquake:
What was the point, she wanted to know, of American journalists asking so many probing questions about the proper response to the earthquake that devastated Sichuan Province last week? What good was served with people still dying and desperate rescue efforts still under way, she demanded, second-guessing the coverage of the Chinese press and asking why they hadn’t posed harder questions?
The colleague in question is not alone. Waves of emotion have washed over all of China throughout this crisis, and from a human standpoint there is nothing more understandable. But for this working journalist, there was an equally deep sense of puzzlement. What does a deep sense of pain and compassion for the victims have to do with the requirements of journalism? To put an even finer point on things, should tough questions ever go unasked?
…One wishes to say to these young reporters, just as I tried clumsily to explain to my colleague, that there is no inevitable tension between compassion and love of nation and the hard-headed pursuit of the truth.
One wishes to say that government-encouraged expressions of nationalism and rallying around the flag pose potentially troubling questions wherever they arise. I would say that there is no better time to ask the difficult question than in the midst of crisis. That is the calling of a good press.
