"To be a thoughtful journalist!"－－This is the slogan of a competition named "Mr. and Ms. Journalists" I ever took part in when I was in China.
It was a competition held by our university for the university students from the whole province (Hubei Province) when I was in my second year, I defeated more than seven hundred other competitors to get into the final and received the Third Award. But years later, the result which made me glad at that time has become no more important. Finally, what remains in my heart is its slogan: To be a thoughtful journalist!
After graduation, most of my classmates chose to work at the media, mostly at newspapers
(Cause it's very difficult to enter into TV stations in China). Sometimes I chat with them in OICQ or MSN, they always tell me that being a journalist in China is really becoming more and more difficult.
The competition has become more and more serious, because whatever your major is, you can be a journalist as long as you'd like to . This situation results in the increasing of the number of journalists, and lots of Journalism professional graduates cannot find jobs in media, and those who get the opportunities to work there have to work harder to keep their jobs.
The futher conclusion is that being a good journalist is much more difficult, because the first problem the journalists have to face is their their own survival issues, and the standard in which they judge the news value has been changed accordingly.
For example, They may think more about the government's policy in the reporting restriction and try not to breach it, in order to avoid doing work without economic benefits.
Of course, not all journalists work like this, it's just an occasion that they may have to undergo.What I mean is that you should have to refuse the temptation of money, to sacrifice time together with your family and to spend more time thinking about how to report news if you really want to be a good journalist, then you should do it!
Well, there might be lots of discussion about how to act as a journalist, I'd like to end my opinion with some words I ever used in my personal statement when I applied for my university:
"I have always believed that anyone fortunate enough to combine earning a living with following his or her own personal interests is very fortunate indeed. I intend to do my best to be such a person."
Monday, November 19, 2007
Monday, November 12, 2007
A comparative study of differences between newspapers in China and America
Due to the economic, cultural and social backgrounds are different, Chinese and the western newspapers reports are quite different in terms of expectation of content, news writing, and the bias of newspapers. I'd like to present the differences from these three aspects and make particular analysis.
First, the expectation of content of the two kinds of newspapers is different. Chinese news is the socialistic journalism. Newspapers, particularly the national newspapers have received the direct leadership of the Central Propaganda Department. And they stressed the party spirit, the party's line, principles and policies as their most important task, so the publicity function is more important than the other functions. And the reported figures tend to heroes, models and other advanced characters.
However, in America entertainment has become a priority task in today's media, news is being treated as a special entertainment industry. For example, the sports competition has uncertain outcome, the intensity of the process and the variability, so American newspapers fully take advantage of these features in its news reports to appeal more and more readers, in order to attract advertisers who can bring large amount of advertising revenues.
Second, the differences of Chinese and Western writing skillswill be presented from the aspects of the headlines, pictures, figures depiction and the use of direct quotation.
(1) Chinese news headlines are generally on the news brief, so that could be read clearly, but most were relatively dull. Western news always uses abstract titles and exaggerates a kind of feelings, this suspense is set up to attract readers to continue to read the text.
(2) With the arrival of "an era of pictures”, American newspapers are often reported in the press coupled with pictures, seize extremely convincing image of the moment, greatly improved the readability of the newspaper press. By contraries, Chinese newspapers still lack the awareness of attracting readers by photographs. Chinese news are coupled with little picture. Even with photographs, they are generally black and white, or very small, having no good visual results.
(3) Chinese newspapers focus on abstract thinking and ignore details on the content, so that the personal image is low. Abstract thinking embodied in the reported figures makes the personality characteristics of people in the news have a strong conceptual and subjective. Statements reported in the figures used to express the author of the subjective feelings of people in the news, to deepen the perception of readers and to enhance reports appealing. Western focus on the image of thinking, things objectively reflects the direct mapping, sending rich information to deepen people's understanding. Meanwhile, the diversity of thinking reflected in the reported figures endues the character traits with multidimensional nature and rich meaning.
(4) Direct quotation enables readers to directly listen to the news who "speak”, and enable the reader to feel the news is true. Using the direct quotation establishes direct links between the speakers and the readers. Western media used to add direct quotation in the report to enhance its credibility. However, Chinese news reports usually lack of direct quotations.
Third, the apparent perspective and possible bias of the newspapers are different in different countries. Chinese newspapers are all state-owned, belonging to the party, and the main function is the publicity, so it generally gives positive reports.
However, the United States is a highly developed commercial society, all media operations are to be able to win the largest commercial interests as the supreme principle. The interests of Media and sponsorship are closely linked together. Some big media itself has teams or major competitions, or acts as the main sponsor. Therefore, some newspapers in United States effected by its sponsors and advertisers inevitably, to some extent they destroy the news objectivity.
First, the expectation of content of the two kinds of newspapers is different. Chinese news is the socialistic journalism. Newspapers, particularly the national newspapers have received the direct leadership of the Central Propaganda Department. And they stressed the party spirit, the party's line, principles and policies as their most important task, so the publicity function is more important than the other functions. And the reported figures tend to heroes, models and other advanced characters.
However, in America entertainment has become a priority task in today's media, news is being treated as a special entertainment industry. For example, the sports competition has uncertain outcome, the intensity of the process and the variability, so American newspapers fully take advantage of these features in its news reports to appeal more and more readers, in order to attract advertisers who can bring large amount of advertising revenues.
Second, the differences of Chinese and Western writing skillswill be presented from the aspects of the headlines, pictures, figures depiction and the use of direct quotation.
(1) Chinese news headlines are generally on the news brief, so that could be read clearly, but most were relatively dull. Western news always uses abstract titles and exaggerates a kind of feelings, this suspense is set up to attract readers to continue to read the text.
(2) With the arrival of "an era of pictures”, American newspapers are often reported in the press coupled with pictures, seize extremely convincing image of the moment, greatly improved the readability of the newspaper press. By contraries, Chinese newspapers still lack the awareness of attracting readers by photographs. Chinese news are coupled with little picture. Even with photographs, they are generally black and white, or very small, having no good visual results.
(3) Chinese newspapers focus on abstract thinking and ignore details on the content, so that the personal image is low. Abstract thinking embodied in the reported figures makes the personality characteristics of people in the news have a strong conceptual and subjective. Statements reported in the figures used to express the author of the subjective feelings of people in the news, to deepen the perception of readers and to enhance reports appealing. Western focus on the image of thinking, things objectively reflects the direct mapping, sending rich information to deepen people's understanding. Meanwhile, the diversity of thinking reflected in the reported figures endues the character traits with multidimensional nature and rich meaning.
(4) Direct quotation enables readers to directly listen to the news who "speak”, and enable the reader to feel the news is true. Using the direct quotation establishes direct links between the speakers and the readers. Western media used to add direct quotation in the report to enhance its credibility. However, Chinese news reports usually lack of direct quotations.
Third, the apparent perspective and possible bias of the newspapers are different in different countries. Chinese newspapers are all state-owned, belonging to the party, and the main function is the publicity, so it generally gives positive reports.
However, the United States is a highly developed commercial society, all media operations are to be able to win the largest commercial interests as the supreme principle. The interests of Media and sponsorship are closely linked together. Some big media itself has teams or major competitions, or acts as the main sponsor. Therefore, some newspapers in United States effected by its sponsors and advertisers inevitably, to some extent they destroy the news objectivity.
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