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Natural disaster refers to the abnormal phenomenon in the nature, which has caused great damage to social economy. They include geological disasters like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, dust, weather disasters like flood, typhoon, tsunami, drought, and environmental disasters caused by human activity like water pollution, soil erosion, acid rain. Social emergency refers to various kinds of sudden accidents due to human factor or various social contradictions, such as traffic accident, fire, mine, plane crash and shipwreck, causing heavy casualties and property losses. For example, American “9 - 11” terrorist attack is the most serious social catastrophe.
Dr. Bill Bonney, a professor in the field of journalism, thinks that for the press media traffic accidents, flood, fire, earthquakes, murders, wars and casualties and damages have the greatest market value. (Bonney, 1983: 317) Disaster events become a hot issue which the national and international news media pay great attention to and report a lot because of its abruptness, timeliness and importance. This kind of news has great news value and often attracts many readers’ attention due to the unpredictability and wide influence. Disasters, such as earthquake, flood, typhoon, aircraft accident, shipwreck and snowstorm, directly affect human lives and property safety, and are related to social stability and development. China is the earliest country to report disastrous news; whereas, after a long period of development, the western media behave relatively mature in the field of disaster events report.
People's Daily and New York Times are the most influential newspapers in China and the United States. This paper chooses the disastrous reports as a case, by comparing People's Daily and New York Times to analyse the differences between Chinese and American disaster news reports. Then sum up the great achievements and existing problems in recent years China has in disaster news reports, and put forward the reform measures.
2. Literature Review
China has insisted on the policy “focus on the positive propaganda” for a long time, so in both theory and practice, disaster news reports are quite weak. In recent years, with the rapid development of democracy and legal system and communication technology, disastrous news becomes more and more important. However, the lag of theory and cognition hamper the healthy development of disastrous news.
At present, there are many research achievements about disastrous news. Ma Shoumin and Chai Yan focus on the comparison between China and the West. They study the insufficient of the current disaster news reports and provide references for them through the comparison of Chinese and Western disaster news reports. (Ma Shoumin & Chai Yan, 1999: 013) Deng Linyi discovers disaster news value from the psychological and aesthetic aspects. (Deng Linyi, 2000: 36-37) Shen Zhengfu puts up that it is a basic principle to report disaster news positively, timely and adequately. Another principle that he proposes is to report disaster news properly and cautiously. (Shen Zhengfu, 2003: 26-28) Li Wei emphasizes the view that the media should pay much attention to the psychology of the victims as well as the disasters themselves. (Li Wei, 2005: 5-6) Zhang Jian claims that disaster news has its own features on the title,lead and the choice of words. Disaster news reports possess more short and simple titles. (Zhang Jian, 2007: 47-52)
However, a lot of researches basically still stay in sporadical level, lacking systematic thinking about the defects of disaster news. So far, the works of domestic research about disaster news have only one. Tian Zhongchu analyzes Chinese disaster news from the perspective of political control, and there is a little space concerning the defects of contemporary disaster news. As for the remedy measures, they are rarely involved. (Tian Zhongchu, 2005:24). Seen from the above situations, in China, paper which studies coping strategies on defects of disaster news hasn’t shown up. However, the coverage rate, coverage level and research level of disaster news make up a significant proportion in the foreign press. Nowadays, the research of Chinese and American disaster news reports between has strong pertinence.源:自/751-·论,文'网·www.751com.cn/