At that time (April 2007), a young reporter from the Zhejiang branch of the China News Agency planned a news story about a hospital in Hangzhou that conducted a urine test on tea, and the hospital gave the result that the tea was "inflamed". The news, immediately caused strong reaction, public opinion have condemned the doctors lack of medical ethics. After this incident, to doctors as the main audience, holding up the banner of professionalism website Ding Xiangyuan invited the national hospitals to check the test department, the results show that the tea can really test the inflammation, this is not a doctor's moral problems, but the test equipment is only by virtue of a few specific biochemical indicators or compounds for detection, tea or other liquids as long as they contain and urine may be detected in the same or similar markers, urinalysis instruments will be automatically recognized to generate results.
The results were confirmed by the Ministry of Health.
While the results of the test themselves do not tell the story, the "tea test" was a nationwide impetus for reforming the health care system. It is on the basis of this effect, the respected investigative reporter at the time of the "tea urine test" of fellow journalists highly respected, that they have fearless courage and skillful means.
But soon, in this discussion, the voice of the lack of professional ethics of the "tea urine test" as a means of journalism prevailed. Media colleagues, including the author and CCTV's "News Investigation" and "Focus Interview" columns, believe that this practice lacks journalistic professionalism. And the so-called journalistic professionalism is precisely to engage in news reporting in accordance with scientific laws and innovative methods in line with journalistic ethics.
In this case, after a lapse of five years, when the author again saw the "tea inflammation" incident repeated, can not help but feel sad.
It should be said that in the "Secrets of Men's Clinic" broadcast by CCTV's "Focus Interview" on July 29, the reporter, still in the spirit of being responsible for patients and the public, tried to reveal the irresponsibility or ineptitude of such hospitals or clinics through unannounced visits to some of the men's hospitals that have been heavily advertised.
However, the reporter's practice of passing off green tea drink as urine for testing and letting the tea become "inflamed" again, not to mention a complete repeat of past practices, also reflects a complete lack of professionalism.
After the industry reached a general understanding of the lack of professionalism and journalistic ethics in the Hangzhou tea and urine test incident, the recurrence of such incidents, I can not help but say that this is the sadness of the Chinese media.
In terms of practicing investigative journalism with professionalism, the practices of foreign counterparts are worth learning from. For example, the 2011 Investigative Journalism Award from Harvard University's Joan Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy went to Allan and Richards of the Las Vegas Sun, who spent two years analyzing 2.9 million records to reveal a large number of preventable infections and injuries at several of the city's hospitals. Their reporting brought transparency to the city's hospitals, allowing them to improve services and provide patients with up-to-date epidemiologic data for reference.
This kind of precision journalism, which draws its conclusions from a wealth of research data, shone again in the 2012 Shorenstein Center Awards for Best Investigative Journalism, with the authors of an article that found that 100 years of U.S. presidential pardons reflected racial discrimination, which found that white pardons had a statistical success rate of four times higher than pardons for people of color, and that the success rate of white pardons was four times higher than that of pardons for people of color. were four times more successful than those for people of color, and an NPR report reviewed thousands of pages of documentation and found that poor communities have a serious problem with water pollution.
Of the six winning entries in the 2012 Shorenstein Center Awards for Best Investigative Journalism, three were for watchdog government reporting, one targeted the military and the other two had to do with the environmental science and technology sector. By looking at these entries, we can say that it has become the mainstream of investigative journalism in the United States for journalists to use a variety of statistics and statistical tools to discover issues that are not officially publicized or even realized, based on their visits and investigations.
In China's case, what we need to reflect on is why this practice of professionalism in accurate research journalism has not played an important role in our news circles. Why is it that our investigative journalism still has to employ less professional means that are deficient in ethics and technical means? In this regard, in fact, in addition to the tea and urine test, but also includes the reporter "fake fall" or by setting up a trap to "fishing" interviews.
Perhaps we can explain China's lack of professionalism in investigating news by processing data by the country's lack of information transparency. The information that allows American journalists to do what they do is, for the most part, not available to the public in China.
But in fact, the information is not unavailable when you take a closer look at various statistical reports and professional journals. One of the most laudable efforts by the environmental group Citizen's Environmental Center is to compile publicly available information from local environmental protection bureaus into a map of China's water pollution, thus making the professional data readable, understandable, and questionable to the public. If civil society organizations can do it, why can't journalists?
Perhaps it can also be explained by the journalists' lack of expertise and scientific knowledge. Indeed, it is undoubtedly too much to ask that journalists have expertise in "tea inflammation". But what we need to reflect on is how this kind of fake interview, which is obviously against the ethics of journalism and professionalism, is always favored by the media.
In fact, some Chinese journalists have also used professional methods to research stories about events that affect the lives of the public. In this regard, Caixin Media's Gong Jing's "Chromium Rice Killing Machine" (New Century Weekly, February 2011, Issue 6), in which he reviewed a large amount of specialized literature, is a very good attempt. This fully demonstrates that it is not impossible to engage in professional investigative reporting in China, and that journalists in China do not lack the qualities needed to conduct professional investigations.
However, the fact remains that China still lacks the means for professional reporting and the promotion or even discussion of media professionalism.
Thinking a little deeper, one realizes that unprofessional interviewing methods are allowed to run rampant because China's media in general do not value professionalism, let alone make it a major measure in the training and growth of journalists.
For the official media, the bosses are concerned with reflecting the spirit of their superiors and trying to get into as little trouble as possible, while for the market-oriented media, people think more about eye-catching effects and don't really care how that eye-catching effect goes against journalistic ethics, science, or even basic facts.