Comparison Between Internal Reporting And External Reporting Of Emergencies

This is an era filled with frequent occurrence of emergencies. For the media, the emergencies are both challenges and opportunities. In the reporting of emergencies, the media takes the duties of transmitting information, communicating government and the people, as well as shaping the country's image.At 14:28 on May 12th,2008, a serious earthquake of a magnitude of 8.0 occurred in Wenchuan County in Sichuan Province. This earthquake, with its supreme power of devastating, ruined the area to the extreme and became the most difficult one for rescue work in Chinese history since the founding of the country. Faced with such a natural disaster, Chinese media's performance is quite different from any previous reports of sudden catastrophic events, their quick response, strong specialization won highly appreciation from western media. The reporting of Wenchuan earthquake is of great significance in the history of our country's reporting about emergencies.In the reporting of Wenchuan earthquake, the media's outstanding performance has won the appreciation of the world, it also reflects that in recent years, the Chinese government gets more and more aware of the importance and necessity to establish the public's trust upon government and to build the country's image. The internal reports of Wenchuan earthquake show the government's responsibility for its people while the external reports are due mainly to shape the image of the country.Two highly representative newspapers:"People's Daily" and "China Daily" are selected as the research sample. Detailed classification, analysis, reflection and conclusion are made from the reports between May 13th to June 12th,2008, totally 31 days, which is the most critical month of the earthquake relief. With the analysis, we can explore the characteristics and responsibilities of internal reporting and external reporting of emergencies, compare the similarities and differences between them and make recommendations for the shortcomings.The article is divided into three chapters. The first chapter makes a description of research background and makes a detailed elaboration to related concept. The second chapter makes an analysis of the selected research sample and compares the respective characteristics, similarities and differences between the two newspapers. The third chapter is the part of conclusion which makes a summarization with the above analysis.