{"id":45244,"date":"2020-01-13T20:10:33","date_gmt":"2020-01-13T12:10:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chinamediaproject.org\/?p=45244"},"modified":"2020-01-13T20:10:33","modified_gmt":"2020-01-13T12:10:33","slug":"debating-chinas-historic-wildfire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinamediaproject.org\/2020\/01\/13\/debating-chinas-historic-wildfire\/","title":{"rendered":"Debating China's Historic Wildfire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For months now, fires across Australia<\/a> have drawn the attention of the world, demanding people sit up and take notice of climate change and ecological crisis as well as hard questions about disaster response and readiness. <\/p>\n\n\n

Meanwhile, in the Chinese social media space, an article comparing Australia’s unprecedented crisis to a major forest fire that occurred in China in 1987 itself fanned a wildfire over the weekend \u2013 raising questions about factual news reporting over self-aggrandizing propaganda. <\/p>\n\n\n

The article, called \u201cWithout this Australian Fire, I Wouldn\u2019t Know the Awesomeness of China 33 Years Ago!\u201d (\u6ca1\u6709\u6fb3\u6d32\u8fd9\u573a\u5927\u706b\uff0c\u6211\u90fd\u4e0d\u77e5\u9053\u4e2d\u56fd33\u5e74\u524d\u8fd9\u4e48\u725b\u903c!),<\/a> characterized the 1987 Daxing’anling Wildfire, a devastating tragedy that had bitter lessons for China, as a moment of great heroism. All of the failings, pain and loss of the 1987 fire were twisted in the article into evidence of the \u201cawesomeness of China 33 years ago,\u201d contrasted with the supposed incompetence of the Australian government.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"\"<\/div>
An excerpt of the article on WeChat criticizing Australia’s response to recent wildfires, and praising China: “Perhaps certain countries are more developed and more advanced than we are in certain areas. But I don’t see in them the responsibility and action that a country should have. They say pretty things about ‘freedom and democracy,’ but they do nothing about refugees.”<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Despite the distressing level of ignorance the article showed toward history, it quickly attracted more than 100,000 views, and an image from the backend of the WeChat platform shared in private chat groups showed that by Sunday afternoon the article had been read 23 million times, and \u201cliked\u201d 300,000 times. These numbers are still climbing. <\/p>\n\n\n

\"\"<\/div><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

As a researcher of journalism and mass communication, I am\nfamiliar with the 1987 Daxing’anling Wildfire because the reporting of this\nstory was a major event in Chinese media history. I still remember sitting in a\nclassroom at Peking University and listening to news editors who had been involved\nin the story discussing the event. <\/p>\n\n\n

A Human Disaster<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

On May 6, 1987, Daxing’anling prefecture in China\u2019s northeastern Heilongjiang province experienced the most serious large-scale forest fire in the history of the People\u2019s Republic of China. The fire raged for close to a month, swallowing up more than a million hectares of forest, a fifth of the total forest area in the prefecture. Close to 200 lives were lost in the fires, and more than 50,000 people were displaced. <\/p>\n\n\n

On May 14, after the fire had raged for a week, the China\nYouth Daily<\/em> newspaper sent a reporters to the scene to report the story. China\nYouth Daily<\/em>, a paper published by the Chinese Communist Youth League, had\nsubstantial credibility and influence at the time. Before the paper\u2019s\njournalists set out for Heilongjiang, they made a solemn promise\nto themselves<\/a>: \u201cWe must remember not to take this tragic song and sing it\nas a hymn of praise!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

Why would they make such a promise? The reason, as the\nnewspaper later made clear in its own summary of its reports, was that up to that\ntime disaster reporting in China had been all about \u201chandling funerals as happy\nevents, greeting small misfortunes with small hymns, and treating major tragedies\nand great victories.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

\u201cIn the magical writings of journalists, the catastrophe often\nbecomes a triumph of communism,\u201d they wrote. \u201cThis was at the time the\nentrenched way of doing things in disaster reporting.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

But in the new climate of reform and opening, as respect grew for the value of factual reporting, a number of aspiring professional journalists were unsatisfied with this way of working. Yang Lang (\u6768\u6d6a), the domestic affairs editor at China Youth Daily<\/em> responsible for the Daxing’anling reports, said at the time: \u201cEveryone recognizes that a disaster is a disaster. Turning a disaster into a triumphal hymn is heaping disaster on top of disaster.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

Following these principles, journalists on the front lines\nin Daxing’anling went in search of the facts and tried to report the truth.\nThrough the reports they filed, we saw clearly that the origin and spread of\nthe fires had much to do with local officials and with bureaucratic work styles.\nWe saw how local country leaders in the area of the fire had sent out\ntruckloads of people to sweep and tidy up the streets to ready them for\nvisiting officials from Beijing, even as the fires were raging. We even saw,\namid the rubble of the county seat of Mohe, a single red-brick building standing\nalone, miraculously saved from the devastation. This was the home of the county\nchief and the fire department head, and local residents had told reporters that\nthe home had been spared because the fire department head had dispatched fire\ntrucks and a bulldozer to the scene to protect it. <\/p>\n\n\n

These reports, the newspaper said in its own assessment, relayed\nto the public with a deafening sound that this was not just a natural disaster\nbut a human disaster (\u4eba\u7978). \u201cThis\nis us\u2014our severe bureaucratism and our rigid system have made us bureaucratic. Even\nas we are spared, this fire consumes us.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

The China Youth Daily <\/em>series contained three reports in all. The headlines were: \u201cThe Red Warning\u201d (\u7ea2\u8272\u7684\u8b66\u544a); \u201cThe Black Sigh\u201d (\u9ed1\u8272\u7684\u548f\u53f9); and \u201cThe Green Sorrow\u201d (\u7eff\u8272\u7684\u60b2\u54c0). People referred to the series at the time as the \u201cthree color reports\u201d (\u4e09\u8272\u62a5\u9053). They were widely praised, and they earned the newspaper a special award that year for best national news reporting. <\/p>\n\n\n

\"\"<\/div>
\u201cThe Black Sigh,” one of three reports put out by China Youth Daily on the Heilongjiang wildfires in 1987.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

One reader in Hubei province wrote a letter to China Youth\nDaily<\/em> saying: \u201cIn the past, I always thought that journalists in our\ncountry were just in the business of pretending everything is fine, but after\nreading these reports I strongly feel you reporters are worthy soldiers of our\ntimes.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

In Chinese media history, the \u201cthree color reports\u201d occupy\nan extremely important position. They are a milestone in disaster reporting,\nmarking the return of disaster reports to the plane of factual reporting, respecting\nnews values. <\/p>\n\n\n

In fact, China Youth Daily<\/em> was not the only newspaper\nat the time to report the Daxing’anling fire in a new spirit of thoughtfulness.\nEven the Party\u2019s official People\u2019s Daily<\/em> published reports of this kind.\nAs veteran People\u2019s Daily<\/em> journalist Zhu Huaxin (\u795d\u534e\u65b0) has recalled, \u201cthe People\u2019s\nDaily<\/em> published 64 consecutive news reports and commentaries [on the fire],\nand within one month 22 news articles on the fire appeared on the front page.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

One of these reports directly questioned the idea that the\ndisaster had been inevitable: \u201cMany facts suggest that the fire was not a\nnatural disaster whose containment was beyond our powers, and that this terrible,\nheart-wrenching misfortune should not have happened; or if it indeed it had to\nhappen, it should not have resulted in such calamitous losses.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

The People\u2019s Daily<\/em> also addressed the question of the\nred-brick house belonging to the country chief and the fire department head. Journalist\nWei Yanan (\u9b4f\u4e9a\u5357)\nfilled in a key detail of this story \u2013 that two homes to the right and left of\nthe chief\u2019s red-brick house had been demolished in order to help protect it. <\/p>\n\n\n

A disaster is a disaster, as Yang Liang said. And turning a\ndisaster into a hymn of praise is heaping disaster on top of disaster. <\/p>\n\n\n

Reporting Against the Odds<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

Under the circumstances of that time in China, it was not\neasy to make breakthroughs in reporting. While there was talk of the need for liberation\nof thought, there were also of course very real restrictions and difficulties\nto work through for news media. <\/p>\n\n\n

Jia Yong (\u8d3e\u6c38),\na journalist who took part in reporting at the time as an intern at China\nYouth Daily<\/em>, later continued to work as a journalist, serving for a time as\ndirector of the People\u2019s Liberation Army desk at the official Xinhua News Agency.\nHe later said in\na piece looking back on the Daxing’anling fire<\/a> that in fact the whole\nreporting process was extremely difficult, because many local leaders and offices\nworked with a \u201cnews control\u201d mentality. <\/p>\n\n\n

But the China Youth Daily<\/em> reporters did not give up\nin the face of these restrictions. \u201cWith the exception of Lei Shumai (\u96f7\u6536\u9ea6),\nwho was almost 40, the other three of us were young, had experience reporting through\nadversity on the front lines, and we were up to the challenge,\u201d Jia Yong said. \u201cWe\nworked hard and with full confidence to get first-hand materials \u2013 at the scene\nof the fire, at the cemeteries, in the ruins, from local broadcasters, hose\noperators, bulldozer operators. During the day we toughened our skins and\nvisited local government offices, and at night we were together with those who\nhad been displaced by the disaster, sleeping together in cold tents with 40 or\nmore people.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

Jia Yong said they felt they had to face danger and\ndifficulty to get to the story \u201cin order to protect the people\u2019s right to know\nabout this major event.\u201d And their efforts were repaid: \u201cMore and more affected\npeople who at first did not dare voice their anger opened up to us and told us\nthe real situation,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n

Ye Yan  (\u53f6\u7814), a\nreporter who later won China\u2019s Fan Changjiang News Award, recalled that he had photographed\na group of people at a local dining hall eating a meal together, and as a\nresult was stopped in the road by a group of about 20 officials, including the\nhead of the tourism office. He and several other reporters we set on and beaten\nby the group. \u201cIt was nothing for them to attack people,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd we were\ntaken in by the Public Security Bureau for two days of questioning.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

After more than a month in Heilongjiang, the journalists\nreturned to the newsroom to write their stories. This was at the height of the\nhot summer in Beijing, and an article in China Youth Daily<\/em> later recalled\nthe lengths the reporters had gone to to finish their stories. \u201cLei Shumai and\nJia Yong were living in an underground room near the China Youth Daily<\/em>\nnewsroom that cost 35 cents a night, and together they consumed 40 bags of instant\nnoodles. To make sure they didn\u2019t have stomach problems, Jia Yong used a grain\ncoupon to buy five kilograms of garlic.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

Twisted Histories<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

The WeChat public account that ran \u201cWithout this Australian\nFire, I Wouldn\u2019t Know the Awesomeness of China 33 Years Ago!\u201d this past week is\ncalled \u201cYouth Courtyard\u201d (\u9752\u5e74\u5927\u9662).\nIn fact, this is the new name for an account that was previously shut down on\nthe platform. <\/p>\n\n\n

If we click into the \u201cYouth Courtyard\u201d account and go into the information section, we can see that the operator is \u201cBeijing Fuguang Yuejin Cuture and Media Company Limited\u201d (\u5317\u4eac\u6d6e\u5149\u8dc3\u91d1\u6587\u5316\u4f20\u5a92\u6709\u9650\u516c\u53f8). And when we click the name of this company we find that the account is the new name for the previous account \u201c90s Tonight\u201d (\u4eca\u591c90\u540e). In fact, it does not really hide this fact. In fact, at\u00a0 the top of the article itself and in the subhead, you can clearly see mention of \u201c90\u2019s Tonight.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

\"\"<\/div>
Screenshot of the “90s Tonight” public account article praising China’s handling of wildfires in Heilongjiang province in 1987 and criticizing Australia and the West. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

For some readers, this may not ring a bell. Others will know\nthat \u201c90s Tonight\u201d is the same outfit that published another controversial\narticle in 2018 about teen idol Yang Chaoyue (\u6768\u8d85\u8d8a) that drew over 100,000 reads, and\nlater faced accusations of fabrication along with a detailed analysis from Newslab<\/em>.\n<\/p>\n\n\n

Later, this same public account  ran an article with the headline, \u201cThat 17\nYear-Old Shanghai Youth Decided to Commit Suicide by Jumping off the Bridge\u201d (\u90a3\u4e2a17\u5c81\u7684\u4e0a\u6d77\u5c11\u5e74\u51b3\u5b9a\u8df3\u6865\u81ea\u6740),\nin which it engaged in pure speculation about the facts behind the\nsuicide in April of a teenager who jumped from the Lupu Bridge<\/a>. The public\naccount was subsequently shut down. <\/p>\n\n\n

Searching job search websites we can see that this company behind \u201c90s Tonight\u201d proudly declaring recently that it is \u201cstarting up again as a completely new public account.\u201d But while the account is a new one, it seems that the tactics and flavor are the same ones we are familiar with. <\/p>\n\n\n

What should particularly distress us all is to see that this\nattitude of \u201cgreeting small misfortunes with small hymns, and treating major\ntragedies and great victories,\u201d which was rejected by Chinese journalists 33\nyears ago, is now, in the traffic-oriented social media environment of the 21st<\/sup>\ncentury, being plucked off the garbage heap of history by this \u201c90s Tonight\u201d\npublic account. <\/p>\n\n\n

To the team behind \u201c90s Tonight,\u201d I wish to say: The\nprofessionalism with which journalists like Yang Lang, Lei Shumai, Li Weizhong,\nYe Yan, Jia Yong, Wei Yanan and others worked to dig out the facts and get at\nthe truth, exposing our maladies \u2013 therein lies the true awesomeness of what\nhappened 33 years ago. And to employ cheap emotional language to cynically draw\ntraffic is a most irresponsible exploitation of that tragedy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For months now, fires across Australia have drawn the attention of the world, demanding people sit up and take notice of climate change and ecological crisis as well as hard questions about disaster response and readiness. Meanwhile, in the Chinese social media space, an article comparing Australia’s unprecedented crisis to a major forest fire that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":45250,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines-and-hashtags"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDebating China's Historic Wildfire - China Media Project<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/chinamediaproject.org\/2020\/01\/13\/debating-chinas-historic-wildfire\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Debating China's Historic Wildfire - China Media Project\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For months now, fires across Australia have drawn the attention of the world, demanding people sit up and take notice of climate change and ecological crisis as well as hard questions about disaster response and readiness. 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