Disaster reports reveal two sides of new media

This will go down as the "darkest week" in aviation history. On July 17, the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in troubled eastern Ukraine claimed 298 lives, six days later 48 people were killed when TransAsia Airways Flight GE222 storm-crashed on Penghu Island in Taiwan, and hours later an Air Algerie-operated flight crashed in restive Mali killing 116 people.

First of all we should mourn the dead and condole their families, because such events sent shockwaves across the world. They also make us want to know the latest. And this is where new media in China, from established Internet portals to the news apps on smartphones, have been playing a vital role. Although they seem to have caught up with developed countries' media giants, their role has been both positive and negative.

The new media, which can tweet news 24 hours a day, kept readers up to date with the latest information on the air tragedies.

Of course, the three air disasters, along with MH370 that went missing with 239 people on board on March 8, should compel the global aviation industry to tighten security and take preventive actions against extreme weather and avoid flying over conflict zones. But the media buzz over the three disasters does not suggest that air travel has become more dangerous. On the contrary, it reflects the rarity of three air tragedies occurring in a week.

Air travel is still safer than road and rail travel. Past decade's figures show that compared with air tragedies, 503 times more people died in road accidents; the ratio was 1:23 for rail accidents. No wonder, people say the most dangerous part of air travel is the drive to the airport.

Psychologist David Myers says it is human nature to irrationally fear things that claim lives in bunches. That is the key reason why the air disasters sent many people into panic. In contrast, smoking doesn't make news in China despite killing more than 1 million every year.

The downing of MH17, however, will have a far-reaching impact on the world and could even trigger a new "Cold War". The US-led West alleges that pro-Russia Ukraine separatists shot down the Malaysian plane and threatens to impose more sanctions on Russia. And Russia says Ukraine should be held accountable for the tragedy.

The three air tragedies, as expected, have got wide coverage in Chinese new media. But in their effort to catch up with the Western media giants, they have almost ignored the disasters that struck China during the same period. Page view-oriented new media have to cater to readers' choice if they want to survive in the fiercely competitive news market. But the digital gap in the Chinese society may leave blind spots in new media.

According to China Internet Network Information Center, China had more than 632 million netizens by the end of June, and 523 million of those were mobile phone users. But about 450 million rural residents do not have access to the Internet, and netizens aged between 20 and 29 years comprise 30.7 percent of the total Internet users. This partly explains the poor coverage of typhoon-hit southern China - rural residents, many of whom are "left-behind" parents or children, do not have a say in Chinese new media.

The death toll from Typhoon Rammasun rose to 56 on Wednesday, with 20 people still missing. Many typhoon-hit areas, especially the rural parts of Guangdong, Hainan and Yunnan provinces, as well as the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region are still facing shortages of water and electricity. Rammasun, the strongest typhoon in four decades, has affected more than 11 million people in southern China. Therefore, Chinese media as a whole should have realized that people and organizations cannot reach help to the affected areas without knowing what is going on.

Similarly, few Chinese media outlets reported in detail the accident on the Shanghai-Kunming Highway in Shaoyang, Hunan province, on July 19 in which 43 people were killed. It is true that road accidents claim about 200,000 lives in China every year, but that does not mean the Chinese media should shirk their responsibility to report the serious ones in detail.

Chinese new media cannot be blamed for disbursing reader-oriented news, but judging by their performance over the last few days, they should shoulder more social responsibilities by attaching more importance to the digitally disadvantaged groups. Hopefully Chinese media outlets will reflect on this shortcoming.

The author is an editor with China Daily. zhuping@chinadaily.com.cn