Daily Lessons from Life 24 July 2012 - China censors coverage of deadly Beijing floods

"China censors coverage of deadly Beijing floods - AFP Jul 24, 2012

BEIJING - Beijing's propaganda chief has ordered Chinese media to stick to good-news about weekend floods, according to a report, after the death of at least 37 people sparked fierce criticism of the government.

Lu Wei told media outlets to stick to stories of "achievements worthy of praise and tears", the Beijing Times daily reported Monday, as authorities tried to stem the tide of accusations that they failed to do enough.

Residents of China's rapidly modernising capital have said some of the deaths could have been prevented if better warnings had been issued and the city's ancient drainage systems modernised.


Many took to China's popular microblogs, known as weibos, to question the official death toll of 37 issued on Sunday, although by Tuesday, censors had begun deleting critical posts from the Internet.

The China Daily, a state-run English-language newspaper with a predominantly foreign readership, ran an editorial on Tuesday urging Beijing authorities to improve the drainage system, which it said "leaves much to be desired".


But much of China's state-run media steered away from critical stories, focusing on human interest angles of residents helping each other out.

Senior Beijing leaders said: "All areas of society are greatly concerned with the numbers of fatalities, (so) we must assess the causes of death," adding any increases in the death toll should be reported immediately."

Typical responses by an 'authoritative' regime? Bury the bad news and focused on the 'inspirational' ones?

Lessons for me are:

1. when bad news happened and allegedly the authorities were at fault or negligent in their duties, they will try to 'silent' it;
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2. yet, given the advance technologies availability, the good and the bad and the ugly news will be heard. It is really unwise to try to muzzle the main stream news mechanism knowing that the 'unofficial' media is accessible to many!;

3. regardless of the trivial on should the authorities silent the bad news and focus on the 'inspirational' or not, the key issues remain: why did the tragedies happened and how can one prevent them from happening again! If someone is at fault, which will not stick easily as the storm is a one-in-60-year one with such ferocity that not even the experts can predict!

My condolences to the families and friends of those who lost their lives in this situation.