Epidemic Prevention in China 05 | N's Media Observation: Xi'an is closed, institutional media has died

Author | Edited by Qin Wuyu | Proofreading by Xiaochong and Min Liweng | Tangtang

 Editor's note / The responsibility of the media is to seek the truth for the public and guard social justice. This core value is not a textbook sentence of any era, whether it is the Western professionalism of journalism or the Marxist view of journalism, this cannot be denied. Even CCTV, which has the most Chinese characteristics, was once given by the leaders as "the mouthpiece of the masses and the supervision of public opinion". It's just that time has changed, and now there is only the slogan "CCTV surnamed the party, absolute loyalty". The transformation of these slogans may be a portrayal and annotation of the current Chinese media environment. Even so, as long as they still hold the title of media or media person, they need to find ways to guard their duties in their respective positions. As Jiang Xue, an independent media person, said: Even if we move forward a millimeter, we have moved forward a little this time, and next time we can move forward a little further. Recently, Xi'an has finally ushered in the final stage of the epidemic. I hope that the citizens who are still restricted by the closure of the city can lift the closure as soon as possible and return to normal life. Through this media observation, let us review the stories and voices that were not produced during the lockdown, see the current media’s aphasia plight, or reflect on how we can move forward one millimeter.

Since the closure of Xi'an on December 23, 2021, secondary disasters have emerged one after another. Incidents such as difficulty in buying vegetables, a boy who was buying steamed buns being beaten by epidemic prevention personnel, a pregnant woman miscarriage, and his father's sudden death from angina pectoris have aroused strong social concern.

However, institutional media hardly released in-depth reports, which is in sharp contrast to the surging public opinion online. In the incident of "Father's Angina Pectoris Sudden Death", the person concerned posted on Weibo and Xiaohongshu that her father suffered from angina pectoris and was refused treatment by many hospitals, and her father finally died after the rescue failed. Afterwards, only one institutional media, The Paper, published an interview report, in which the client narrated his father’s medical experience and questioned, “The security guard said that he was doing his duty; the nurse who received the consultation said that she was doing her duty; the hospital was doing her duty. Said that he is performing his duties. (From) all the requirements of epidemic prevention and control (from the point of view), everyone has no problem, who is the problem?" "With a voice, we can improve, and we can avoid unnecessary sacrifice."

The report, titled "The "Few" in the Epidemic, was deleted shortly after it was published. The next day, The Paper published this report again on its official account.

The Xi'an report that was deleted shortly after it was published (Photo: provided by the author)

In addition, a self-media "Fengxue Reading Club" also released a report on the public account entitled "6 hours of waiting for nucleic acid: Xi'an closed the city night, I lost my father forever" . This is a standard in-depth report. It uses 5,000 words to explain how my father was refused treatment by many hospitals after he fell ill, waited for nucleic acid test results after arriving at the hospital, and no one in the hospital took any first aid measures against his father for nearly 7 hours. . Compared with the brief Q&A report of The Paper, this report is more detailed and in-depth. It was later learned that this was a report written by a young reporter Yan Qing and edited by Jiang Xue. For various reasons, it can only be published in the self-media. It was subsequently reprinted by Phoenix.com and others.

The "pregnant woman miscarriage" incident occurred at least 3 times. On December 29, a pregnant woman who was 6 weeks pregnant was rejected by several hospitals and had a miscarriage. On January 1, another pregnant woman who was 8 months pregnant waited 2 hours for a miscarriage in front of the hospital. Both pregnant women posted on Weibo, describing their experiences of miscarriage after being denied a diagnosis. " China News Weekly " and " Beijing News " respectively published express videos of interviews with the pregnant woman herself or her family members, and the family members simply responded that they were being hospitalized. No media followed up.

There is also a pregnant woman who is 39 weeks pregnant. In the case of nucleic acid test results, she was still rejected by the hospital and unfortunately miscarried. Pregnant women posted on Weibo "Guo Ling LL" about their miscarriage experience, but there was no media follow-up interview, and Weibo has also been deleted.

Some screenshots of Weibo (Photo: provided by the author)

In China's media ecosystem, whenever a news event occurs, various media will immediately send out an alert. The length is often about 1,000 words, or even just a Weibo or a short video, briefly explaining the incident and interviewing the latest news of the parties concerned. Happening. Afterwards, the in-depth reporting departments of various media will follow up, conduct more in-depth interviews with the parties involved, conduct surrounding interviews, and then combine previous reports to issue an in-depth report of 4,000-8,000 words. In-depth reporting not only needs to explain the incident clearly, but also requires incremental information, often requiring multiple interviews for several hours.

Nonfiction media will also find their own angles to tell a good story with longer lengths. Often, non-fiction reports spread best. For example, in the Henan flood incident, "Post- disaster Zhengzhou: When a City Suddenly Lost the Internet " written by "Story Hardcore".

And this time Xi'an was closed, and there were only a handful of in-depth reports published by institutional media. Dahe Daily (Henan's Metropolis Daily) reported that a 39-year-old man in Xi'an suffered sudden chest pains and was refused treatment by three hospitals in a row and died suddenly. "Kaiping News (Spring City Evening News)" reported that after a man in Xi'an voluntarily requested isolation and failed, all six members of a family were infected with the new crown (deleted). Caixin published several reports on people's livelihood issues such as the difficulty of buying vegetables. Except for Caixin, the media failed to issue reports investigating the difficulty of buying vegetables.

"The Paper" also published a report analyzing why the Xi'an health code collapsed; "China Philanthropist" analyzed " Where have social organizations gone under the epidemic in Xi'an? ". These two analytical reports have found a good angle, especially the latter one, by saying that Hao Nan, the head of Zhuoming Disaster Information Service Center, hopes to "build the resilience of the community at the grassroots level in a more organized way." , pointed out the fact that "a large number of volunteers are idle at home due to lack of work", that is, Xi'an's epidemic prevention policy lacks the participation of social organizations and lacks resilience.

In addition, various media reported that postgraduate students could not take the exam due to the epidemic prevention policy in the early days of Xi'an's closure. At that time, Xi'an also allowed families to send one person to go out to purchase every 2 days, and the difficulty of buying vegetables was not yet prominent.

Among the non-fictional media, only Esquire published a Letter from Xi'an , in which the author wrote his experiences since the closure of the city in a diary style.

Some media started from a warm tone and restrained the people's livelihood crisis under the lockdown, such as " 21 Days of Xi'an Decoration Workers Living in the Owner's Home " published by "Freezing Point Weekly". " Xi'an People's Refrigerator Stores Their "City Closure" Life " published by Extreme Day Studio. In addition, the "Beijing News" also published a number of "positive energy" reports similar to " Some districts and counties in Xi'an distribute free vegetables to residents, and volunteers relay the "last mile" .

It can be said that "Freezing Point Weekly (China Youth Daily)", "Beijing Youth Daily (Beijing Youth Daily)", "Extreme Day Studio (Sohu.com)" and "In the World (Phoenix.com)" are several media that are known for their in-depth reports. No critical in-depth report was issued.

On January 6, Vice Premier Sun Chunlan of the State Council emphasized that "the primary responsibility of medical institutions is to provide medical services, so during the epidemic prevention period, patients must not be turned away by any excuse."

Apparently, what the Deputy Prime Minister responded to was not the disappearing media reports, but the surging public opinion on the Internet. Because the "pregnant woman miscarriage" incident, the institutional media did not issue a decent report. The "father's sudden death of angina pectoris" was only reported by The Paper. On Weibo, related hashtags have been on the hot search list for many times, and tens of thousands of comments have been poured into the party's Weibo. Institutional media and public opinion are not so hot and cold.

In the early days of Wuhan’s lockdown, the media seized on the “window period” that had not yet responded to the supervision and published a number of blockbuster reports, such as a series of interviews with Dr. Li Wenliang, why the hospital where Li Wenliang worked was heavy casualties among medical staff, and the person who issued the whistle . Two years later, the regulatory response was more swift and forceful. The media only had time to write about the postgraduate students in Xi'an, but there were only a handful of in-depth reports on the pain points of people's livelihood and life tragedies, such as the difficulty of grocery shopping and medical treatment.

According to the observation of Jiang Xue, an independent media person in Xi'an, the closure of the city in Xi'an is another big city with a population of 10 million after the closure of Wuhan, a large city with a population of 10 million, at the beginning of the epidemic two years ago. Supermarkets are "closed". And because the incident happened suddenly, the relevant parties obviously did not make relevant plans, which made it difficult to buy vegetables after the city was closed, and people's difficulty in seeking medical treatment and medicine, and other serious livelihood problems, and secondary disasters occurred frequently.

When we observe the institutional media, we can see that, in addition to an article in China News Weekly questioning Xi'an's epidemic prevention chaos at the beginning of the closure, which was quickly deleted, other large institutional media, such as Caixin, Famous media such as finance and economics, during the nearly month-long closure of the city, seldom gave comprehensive reports and perspectives on issues such as public policy mistakes since the closure of Xi'an.

According to Jiang Xue's analysis, this time, institutional media rarely focused on major events such as Xi'an's closure, which may be related to the extremely strict control measures adopted by Xi'an. Because the closure of Xi'an was very thorough this time, in reality, it was difficult for institutional media to enter Xi'an and obtain access to Xi'an. "Pass" interview. In addition, with the Beijing Winter Olympics just around the corner, the media's attention and judgment on the environment of relevant speeches kept them outside Xi'an.

The Xi'an postgraduate entrance examination report published on the official account platform of the world is prohibited from sharing on WeChat (Photo: provided by the author)

In general, the media cannot set the agenda earlier than the public opinion in this Xi'an city closure incident, and they cannot even follow up in time after the public opinion boils over. In the past, "we still have to look at the media for major events", but when we are reduced to major events, we can only look at the patchwork of information from the media, which can only mean that the institutional media has died.

In the closure of Xi'an, the most discussed should be "Chang'an Ten Days" published by independent media person Jiang Xue. The article was published on the public account on January 4, and was blocked on January 8. According to people close to Jiang Xue, after the article was published, Jiang Xue, who was in the closed city, received a warning from relevant parties. Jiang Xue left the institutional media in 2015 and began to work as an independent media person. She once said in an interview, "There must be a ceiling above our heads, but I will always get close to or even try to break through that ceiling. This is my responsibility as a media person. Because if you crawl there forever, You'll never go forward, even if we go a millimeter, this time we went a little bit, next time we can go a little bit further."

It is also worth noting that this time the Xi'an city closure incident, various comments from the media are very rich, although there are too many emotional analysis, but there are also serious analysis and comments. For example, Wang Mingyuan published an article on the WeChat official account, "The Economics and Political Science Issues Behind Xi'an's Lockdown Crisis". But the article has also been deleted.

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