The Analysis Of China-related Disaster Reports Of "NewYork Times"

With the development of our country’s economy and the improvement of the openness degree, foreign media have being paid more attention to China. In recent years, disasters happened frequently in our country and they attracted the attention from the world’s media. As an important part of news reports, disaster reports have taken some changes. The New York times has a certain influence in the whole world, and the subjects, angles, position of the reports affect the world’s perception to our country. Through analysis of its reports, we can take a better look at the attitude of the New York times, a representative of the western media, to our country.This study has combed the study of media reports about the disasters at home and abroad, and summarized the foreign reports of American media, especially the reports about China. The main part of this paper has reviewed the major disaster events in our country and taken the New York times’ reports about the Wenchuan earthquake, Yushu earthquake, Ya’an earthquake as the research object. The sources, issues and reporting framework are summarized and analyzed. Finally, with the comparison of three events reports, this paper discusses the changes, the differences, and the reasons.The study has found that the number of Wenchuan earthquake reports is the largest, the perspective is more diverse and the position is more critical. More attentions are paid to ethnic problems in the whole Yushu earthquake reports. The internet became the complement to traditional reporting ways in Ya’an earthquake, furthermore, the recognition of China has increased. The reasons of these changes are the openness of China society, the enhancement of Chinese government’s emergency ability and reduction of the control about foreign media,and so on.