While China’s athletes won glory in Paris at this year’s Olympics and Paralympics, there was widespread agreement on Chinese social media that the country’s reporters did not. Bloggers and athletes alike rolled their eyes at the inanity of the Chinese press corps’ questions to competitors. One particular flashpoint was a comment made during a livestream by Nanfang Daily’s Zhu Xiaolong, who questioned 17-year-old diving gold-medalist Quan Hongchan’s educational level and emotional maturity. But the storm over Zhu’s comment was a microcosm of broader discussion about the news media, their role in China today, and their capacity to fulfill it.

 A series of translations this week shows some examples. First, the following post from WeChat public account Wang Zuo Zhong You slams reporters for puffing themselves up with intellectual pretensions and chasing clicks with vapid fluff, rather than seriously focusing on the Games and athletes. The post’s title, “The Olympics Interview Pit Was Crowded With Kong Yijis,” refers to an often self-deprecating Lu Xun reference about overeducated underachievement.

These Olympics have been tough.

As if athletes weren’t exhausted enough vying for medals on the field, they also have to deal with inane questions from reporters.

Each question is more bewildering than the last.

When they’re listening to reporters’ bizarre questions, it becomes easy to infer from their tone and expression what they must be thinking. 

Those holding up the microphones are clearly a bunch of Kong Yijis, always spouting obscure classical references that baffle their listeners.

At the press conference after [singles tennis player] Zheng Qinwen won gold, for example, one of them came up with this astonishing phrase: “After a century of vicissitudes, we are striding into an era of prosperity and strength …”

Several of the other reporters responded with sidelong glances and tried not to laugh.

He blathered on about the vicissitudes of time without actually saying anything meaningful, sounding less like a reporter interviewing Zheng Qinwen, and more like someone reciting a model essay by heart.

In another example, when Quan Hongchan was heading to the venue, a nearby reporter blurted out this question: “Are you tired from flying?”

Looking puzzled, Quan Hongchan stopped and asked, “What?”

The reporter finally had the chance he’d been waiting for. “People are always talking about how high you fly, how much you’ve achieved,” he said, “but do you ever find it exhausting?” 

That reporter probably spends his time reading journals like “Yilin” and “Zhiyin,” and figured his obscure reference to flying would win him mass acclaim, or at the very least, would tug at the heartstrings of his audience.

What he didn’t expect, though, was that Quan Hongchan would fail to catch the obscure reference and answer, “Who wouldn’t be tired, being asked questions like this?”

I could sense the reporter inwardly shaking his head at this, thinking, “This child is unteachable.”

[…] Quan Hongchan deftly turned down [another] reporter’s proffered English lesson with an “I don’t want to know.” The reporter was crushed, and could only grin awkwardly as he watched her walk off.

[…] Question after question like this, hunting for gossip, spouting chicken soup, stirring up awkwardness, filling the air with embarrassed laughter. Can’t these two thousand-plus reporters manage to come up with any more substantive questions?

I guess not.

Scrolling through their questions, the whole screen is filled with two words: “Trending Topic.”

They never gave a thought to asking any real questions, only to how to create trending topics.

Asking about gossip, shipping celebrity couples, and clowning about are the best ways to hit the trending topics list.

Compared to digging deeply into athletes’ hardships and exploring what drives them to compete, isn’t it easier to grab attention and traffic by speculating about which would make cute couples, or getting them to spill a bit of chicken soup?

These reporters know perfectly well what their audience wants, what kind of questions make for good hashtags, and what kind of interviews will go viral.

But maybe they’ve all forgotten this:

The job of entertainment reporters is to entertain.

But when that’s all that any reporters can do, it stops being so entertaining. [Chinese]

Cindy Carter contributed to this post.