Reporting China
| 15:11 UK time, Wednesday, 28 June 2006
Last night, The World Tonight won the for radio for a series of reports we ran last year on forced evictions and forced abortions in the Chinese countryside by the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s Beijing Correspondent, Rupert Wingfield-Hayes.
Winning awards is great for morale. It's recognition that we do more than slap each other on the back and that others - out there, outside the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ - recognise the quality of what we do.
However, I have to admit to mixed feelings at entering for an award from a campaigning organisation because that was not what motivated me to commission the reports. This came home to me when I was giving an interview after the award presentation to Amnesty's PR people, and I felt I had to point out that we didn't run the reports in order to support any campaign, but because I felt we need to give rounded coverage of the China story.
The emergence (or in the grand sweep of history the re-emergence) of China as an economic powerhouse is more than a story of extraordinary growth statistics, gleaming skyscrapers, and Chinese investment in Africa. And while many Chinese are becoming better off, there are losers in this story and it is important to hear their voices so our listeners can make sense of the story for themselves.
Comments
I suppose this comes about because perceptions matter, if not to the individual then to the platform (here The World Tonight) the individual uses to present the story.
So, any perception that could undermine the integrity of the platform in any way is a cause for worry.
But then, look at it this way: are those perceptions correct? If they aren't then it should not matter because those viewers who seek the truth cannot have eyes that colour easily.
Heavens...on first reading this comes across as noble, journalism rising above the fray of 'single-issue' concerns; but more fundamentally it is demonstration of the problems of journalism and 'editorship'.
What is 'rounded coverage'? It's a figment of these editors' minds, which we allow them to get away with.
There may be not agreed formula for unbiased coverage, but the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ - while accurate and detailed and 'balanced' beyond many other sources - has an inherently conservative view: if it is backed by 'government', be it Chinese or another, then it is 'okay'. This is one of the problems of media: if the facts suggest that a government is inherently at fault, e.g. Chinese human rights, how strongly do you cover this? In the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s case, far too weakly as a rule - preferring to mouthe banalities about 'rounded coverage', and 'viewers making up their own minds' and so forth.
If you don't inform people often and fully and urgently and vividly enough, they won't know and they won't care, and they won't demand this information in the future. Human rights, international development, environment, slower and more diffuse processes of internationalisation than techno-econo-globalisation, all these won't be part of rounded coverage until you decide that it's daily fare.
Shame you got the wrong message from the prize, therefore: the message is, wake up to your self-satisfied definition of 'rounded coverage'.
You may be interested to know that here in the States, Fox News refuses as a matter of policy to submit any of their work for any journalism awards. (Whether Fox News staffers are allowed to accept awards from NGOs for which they did not nominate themselves, I can't say, nor do I know whether or not their sister organization Sky News has a similar policy.) Fox claims to have this policy out of a belief that such awards are generally a waste of time and do indeed allow viewers to see appearances of impropriety where none may exist; others, of course, claim it's because Fox News stands little chance of ever winning any of the usual journalism awards given the current ideological makeup of the American news media in general.
But I must admit, Mr Burnett, that when I read your opening paragraph of this post, the first thought to enter my mind was, "Wow, ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ News winning an award from Amnesty International. There's a surprise." The poster above me, "A P", is absolutely correct: Perceptions matter. Perhaps Fox News's policy makes sense.
At the moment we've got one blogger complaining the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s too liberal, one blogger complaining that the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s too conservative, and one blogger pontificating on both sides of the issue - it sounds pretty well-rounded to me.
Mr Burnett, it would be nice to hear/see from the losers in the UK at least more than the once every blue moon.