School of Journalism
Renmin University of China (Beijing)
2012/4/6
Introduction
 We are students from Journalism School of Renmin
University of China located in the capital city Beijing.
 Our course is named as Interviewing & Reporting in
English. Prof. Zhong Xin is our instructor.
 This course means to help the students to better
understand Western journalism practice by closely
reading news stories of mainstream media. It will also
help the students to practice news interviewing and
reporting in English.
Introduction
 We are so happy to join this international project.
 We believe such exchange will help us to learn from
each other and better understand each other.
 This plan is based on discussion of the class this
morning meaning to share our understanding about
the social responsibility of media in disaster and
our handling of this specific case with the U.S.
students.
 This is a brief idea of our plan. We will work on a more
detailed one next week.
Introduction
Next Monday(April 9), Mr. Tom Rochon, the president of
Ithaca College will visit Renmin University of China. We
look forward to more cooperation and exchange with you.
CONTENTS
 This presentation have the following parts:
 1. Our understanding about the social
responsibility of media in disaster
 2. What we plan to do before the breaking of the dam: check
with related departments about the potential disaster
and widespread early warnings;
 3. What we plan to cover after the dam broke Friday afternoon(
rescue and relief focused actions).
 4. What we plan to do after the major stage of rescue(more indepth analysis, more reflection, more investigative stories on the
possible human mistakes to avoid future disaster and reduce the
damage )
 5. How we should balance the natural disaster reporting (
public service) and sports coverage ( profit making event).
 The social responsibility of media in disaster prevention and
mitigation
 Basic mission
 To Get the signs and examine the potential disaster with
authority and related experts in the prevention phase;
 To Inform the public of the danger;
 To Report the true situation of the disaster after it happens
to shape the responses correctly;
 To prevent secondary disaster by reporting;
 To convey information to help domestic and intl. aid to people
in need ;
 To examine this disaster and try to prevent future disaster.
What the media should do
 Report to the news director as soon as we
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got the twitter information and inform him about the
possible disaster and special report;
Ask the news anchor in the location to contact
the local department of hydrology, dam management
department to learn more about the situation. Then,
Send cameraman and a crew to the scene if the news
director said “ yes, let’s cover it”.
Confirm with authority about the possibility of dam
breaking.
Inform the public via different media platform about the
severity of the situation and the plan for
downstream evacuation.
What to do
 More reporters arrive the scene as soon as possible
 To report the disaster thoroughly;
 To identify the difficulties and needs of the area;
 To Mobilize the community to join the rescue and
relief.
What to do
 Thinking about why the disaster happened
 Evaluate the performance of governments and
organizations in the relief process
 Find out disaster prevention and reduction methods
 In China, CCTV-news is likely to have non stop
coverage about the disaster, while CCTV-Sports will
continue the sports game coverage.
 But if the disaster situation is very serious，CCTVsports may stop the sports coverage to show the
condolence.
 Public service instead of profit making is more
important at the moment.
Before and after the dam breaks
 The media should:
 1. Identify the information in need first. Basically, the
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situation of the potential and real disaster; The right
methods to reduce the damages;
2. Make best use of different media platforms to keep the
public informed. E.g:
Television to inform the people at home
Internet to inform and interact with internet users;
Radio to inform and mobilize the drivers;
Mobile phone to inform and mobilize all the phone users.
 That’s all for now.
 Thank you very much for your attention.