For the China Media Project, David Bandurski looks at the issue of media quality in light of the unprecedented amount of reporting on the Wenchuan earthquake:
Chinese are increasingly savvy media consumers, and there is no doubting their growing appetite for information. It is probably safe to assume, too, that most Chinese share a basic expectation that the information they read is reliable. Don’t we all?
But when it comes to emotionally charged issues like the disastrous earthquake in Sichuan (or unrest in Tibet, or the Beijing Olympics), views about the relative importance of reliable information over more intangible things like national glory or motherly love can grow very contentious.
This became clear at QQ.com over the weekend, when a special topics page on the “tide of emotion” generated by one fake news story in particular drew hundreds of impassioned responses.
The fake story in question was about a mother who left an SMS text message for her baby as they were trapped in the rubble of the quake (”Sweet child, should you survive, you must remember that I love you.”) The widely discredited story first appeared in a Tianya chatroom and was subsequently reported by mainstream media without verification.
