Two Tragedies, Two Journalisms

While Americans have been transfixed by the plight of six miners trapped underground in Utah a similar tragedy has been going on in China, but the way the very unfortunate incidents have been treated by the media have been very different. In the USA the media has talked with every expert on mine safety, family member, and critic of mine operations they could find. In China by contrast, the official media has been very careful to treat the story of the 181 miners trapped in a flooded mine very gingerly and under the control of the state propaganda agency. No criticism of the local or provincial authorities has been allowed. Beijing warned media to get out of the area of the tragedy and to let the government's official Xinhua news agency do the reporting. Some journalists were reportedly roughed up when they didn't get out of town fast enough. A few Western journalists managed to get some of the story out to the world, including information from Forbes that the miner's families were being treated pretty shabbily. But readers of China's newspapers will not be reading of this.