Media sell hope on and offline

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By Zhao Huanxin (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-03 07:54

Jack Canfield, a US motivational speaker, said the success of his Chicken Soup for the Soul series proved that a book could change a life.

An inspiring and informative news report can likewise change a life.

In the midst of the great recession, the power of the media to bring about positive change in society should never be underestimated.

Now more than ever before, we need stories to uplift the spirit of communities, to amplify hope, and pave the way for a revival of the economy.

Here is a recent heart-warming story that should make us feel good.

Liu Junjun, a vocational school graduate, was on her way to a job interview when she came across a wounded man. She helped to take him to the hospital, but missed out on the interview and her chance of finding a job.

A local newspaper in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan province, reported Liu's predicament. The report brought forth a deluge of calls and praise from readers and residents. The No 1 hospital affiliated to the Zhengzhou University gave Liu another chance and employed her.

Against the backdrop of a shrinking job market amid the economic downturn, such a story helped to instill hope in many people, giving them the courage to keep faith in tough times, that good things can happen; and, that a caring act always inspires people.

Most of us have been so much exposed to reports on the cold and cruel aspects of life in this period of gloom; or, fed on explicit scenes of violence, obscenity and celebrity scandals. For example, in stark contrast with the report on Liu, another job-seeking story may have ruined the mood of many.

A female college graduate in Laishan of Shandong province reportedly attempted to commit suicide last month, after "feeling hopeless" about finding a job. Luckily, the police came to her rescue in the woods, where hordes of bystanders had gathered.

In addition to making newspaper headlines, the story was widely posted online: A search on Google for the Chinese headline "Female college student, hopeless in job seeking, attempts suicide" generated 63,900 hits, compared with 17,800 results on the same search engine for the reports on Liu Junjun.

Imagine how peers of the college graduate, already worried about job prospects, would react after reading the Shandong story. There's no question that they would react quite differently from the way they did to Liu's story.

Like caring, pessimism, too, can be catching, and instead of inspiring it can be depressing. But by no means are the media, print or online, to blame. The media have readers and advertisers to serve.

It is only natural that the media will bombard readers with reports on bizarre events and disasters, so long as those things happen: unmarried mothers throwing babies to death, building and bridge collapses, train collision in China and a plane crash in Yemen these days, to mention only a few. But the way the media presents negative news reports will make a big difference.

For long, leading Internet news portals in China have followed a practice of posting online stories on the dark side of life in order to grab more eyeballs.

Often, these reports get bunched excessively during a particular period, and usually are among the list of "hot stories" recommended by editors to be embedded in various layers of web pages.

For example, a study found that an online news portal posted 262 articles featuring women in its "social news" section in two months between March 1 and April 40 in 2006. Of this lot, 209 - that is seven out of nine - women-related stories were "negative".

In these reports, women were portrayed as either avid pursuer of material objects, naive, or irrationally vulnerable to violence and even heartless avengers.

In an extreme case of vulgarity, one picture story was about a nervous woman who wet her trousers when trapped for long in a bus!

As a consequence of such harmful, negative portrayal of women getting bunched together, readers even tend to question the credibility of reports about diligent, independent or successful women, observed Zheng Wenwen, the author of the study.

Women's issues are just part of the "social news" on the web and in print. It would cause depression, stress and strain among readers if they are constantly served such news.

When so many people are trudging through the sludge of despair in these hard times, reporters and editors should bear the responsibility of producing, and presenting online in a proper way, stories that help people to remain optimistic and hopeful.

And, when reporting tragedy or scandal, they should draw the line between informing and inflaming.

As Victor Panichkul, managing editor of the Statesman Journal in Oregon, put it, what you read helps to shape what you believe, and what you believe shapes how you act towards others.

At a time when confidence has been cited by Premier Wen Jiabao as being "more important than gold", media people should think about how they can shape and bolster people's confidence.

To help people emerge from the current economic crisis, the media could proudly play a vital role, partly by producing more motivational reports, shedding light on the dark side, and guiding people to the light at the end of tunnel.

(China Daily 07/03/2009 page12)