3. A Case Study of Wen Chuan Earthquake

Domestic news of natural disasters is usually reported in the home page in People’s Daily. If a serious earthquake happens, such as the Wenchuan earthquake, Qinghai earthquake in Yushu, it is usually reported in detail in the form of special issues, occupying most of the pages. In People’s Daily, the news theme is often about relief and policy, and its news selection principle is to promote stability. The headlines often publish news like policy deployment, disaster relief or leaders’ visit. It usually stands in the global perspective to look at the news. It often reports behaviors like the leaders’ visit to the disaster area, volunteer service, people’s caring behavior from all walks of life. Reports about earthquake disaster abroad are relatively less. And when severe earthquake occurs, it is posted in overseas layout, to inform the audience of the earthquake. Its report covers most that leaders in our country send condolences to the earthquake disaster country.

In New York Times, when reporting the seriousness of the disaster, it is not just a general statement. It shows the victims’ living conditions and reveals the seriousness of the disaster through the description of their eyes, action, mental outlook and dwelling place. It is so-called peep one spot and see whole picture. The major content of disaster news reports is about the victims, disaster scenarios and the destroyed houses and bridges in the earthquake. These reports provide information for the victims, and inform them the present situation and the number of casualties. They just report the activities during disaster relief, and seldom mention the appearance of the leadership, the amount of the donation and volunteer service. These can reflect that American media are more accurate when reporting disaster news and they fully show the details of the disaster.文献综述

In May 12, 2008, a severe earthquake happened in China. People’s Daily and New York Times both timely reported that disaster. This paper aims to explore the differences between Chinese and American disaster news reports, by comparing the reports of the two newspapers from the perspective of cross culture. 

From the point of news view, People’s Daily reports the news based on the whole event. However, New York Times focuses on the news value of the earthquake and highlights the consequences and miserable situation of the disaster, so as to attract the readers to pay attention to the earthquake itself and the consequences and supervise the government behavior. These can help the media firstly establish the “selling point” in the competition in order to obtain the biggest news interests. This is the result of different social systems between China and America.