From Tangshan To Wenchuan: China Disaster Reported Changes

Disaster is accompanying the development of human society. Because of the serious destruction and harm, disaster arouses people's wide concern, and has a high news value. Disaster news is an important part of news reports, how to make a good disaster reporting has become a focus of media competition. In China, under the Government concepts' and news reporting concepts' influence, disaster news reporting developed on a tortuous path, observing disaster news development more than 30 years, it is easy to see that the overall trend is that well.When 1976 years the Tangshan earthquake erupted, there was almost no information about hurt, death and loss, except a purely political propaganda reporting, to 1987 years Daxinganling serious forest fires, more objective reports appeared, and then to 1998 years the Yangtze River flooding, a lot of typical elements appeared in disaster reports, at the same time, the reports were more comprehensive. In the 2003 years, the SARS broke, it was a watershed in the history of disaster reports, since then, disaster was reported under a better policy support, to 2008 years the Wenchuan major earthquake broke out, under a more lenient policy environment, the medias were tried their best and did a successful disaster report, since then, disaster reports went up on to a new level.In this paper, writer selected several typical cases about disaster in China, then relevant to the Xinhua News Agency reports about these cases, combed the course of changes about disaster reports, since the Tangshan earthquake 32 years ago to the Wenchuan earthquake in the last year. as an example of the reports about theWenchuan earthquake, analyzed the existed problem currently about the Chinese news media in the course of disaster reports, and discussed solution methods from the news ethics and humanistic care, the relevant laws and regulations, chosen of the report angles, the experience of western media in advanced countries etc.