On the night of August 12, 2015, a series of major explosions swept across the Binhai New Area, a busy port just 40 kilometres east of the northern Chinese city of Tianjin. The explosions occurred less than one kilometre from several high-density residential areas, and damage extended as far as two kilometres from the blast site. It has now been a little over a week since this major sudden-breaking story unfolded. Looking back, how do we assess the performance of domestic Chinese media, which in recent years have suffered under a steadily worsening climate — and have answered other tragedies this year with almost deafening silence?
A Footrace Between Bans and the Facts
As in the case of the high-speed rail crash outside the city of Wenzhou on July 23, 2011, the first information available about the Tianjin explosions came from social media in China. At 11:29PM on August 12, web user “@Ada DouDouDou” (@Ada豆豆豆) posted photographs of fires in Tianjin, along with mobile video, in her WeChat group. This was, as far as we know, the earliest report on social media of events unfolding in Tianjin. The post was made five minutes before the first major explosion, which the China Earthquake Networks Networks Centre would eventually report as having occurred at 11:34PM.
At 11:37PM, users “@Xiao Kim” (@潇Kim) and “@Pang Zhe Long” (@龐哲龍) simultaneously posted videos of explosions in Tianjin. These were the first videos available of the explosions. The video from “@Pang Zhe Long,” just two seconds in length, showed a column of fire rising up into the sky. “Does anyone know what’s up?” one of the posts asked.
The photos and videos first shared by these and other mobile users close to the scene in Tianjin became the first-hand materials on which media, both inside and outside China, initially relied. The Paper (澎湃新聞), a largely mobile new media site launched by Shanghai’s Oriental Press Group, was one of the quickest to share videos taken in Tianjin, reporting simply: “A video from the scene of an explosion occurring late at night in Tianjin’s Binhai New Area development zone.”
At 11:49PM, Tencent, one of China’s largest internet portal sites, became the first to provide news in headline fashion: “A mushroom cloud rises from the scene of an explosion in Tianjin, shocks are felt scores of kilometres away.” This was nearly an hour ahead of the official People’s Daily, which sent out short news items at 12:43AM and 1:11AM via its official Weibo account.
Breaking news reports from Chinese media came well in advance of official releases from government agencies. The first post, for example, from “Peaceful Tianjin” (@平安天津), the official Weibo account of the Tianjin Public Security Bureau, did not come until 2:44AM on August 13, almost three hours after Tencent’s initial post. The release from Tianjin police confirmed the basics, saying explosions had occurred at “the container yard of the warehouse of Rui Hai International Logistics.”
This early detail would quickly become one of the core threads Chinese media would pull with relish, loosening the hem of a complex and revealing story.
We saw a rapid response from Chinese media of all kinds in the immediate wake of the explosions—including websites, newspapers, radio and television. Prominent newspapers and magazines, including The Beijing News, Caixin Media, The Paper, Caijing, Jiemian and China Youth Daily, all dispatched journalists to the scene, as did China Central Television’s News Channel. On August 13, the day immediately after the explosions, morning editions of The Beijing News, Beijing Youth Daily and others carried news of the explosions. Page one of The Beijing News featured a large photograph of the fire-cloud rising above the scene of the explosion.
Aside from this front-page coverage, the newspaper included further coverage on page 6.
In sudden-breaking stories in the past, such as the high-speed rail crash in Wenzhou, domestic Chinese media have done strong reporting despite strong and directed media controls. This generally means taking advantage of confusing situations and gaps in the government response, leaping into action before coverage of the story can be fully constrained.
There is no doubt, however, that in recent years media have been under intensified pressure across the board, and hard-won space for good reporting — even of a fleeting nature — has diminished. In the case of two major stories this year, the January stampede on the Bund in Shanghai and the capsizing in June of a cruise ship on the Yangtze River, the Chinese media were subjected to controls to an extent perhaps not seen in the past two decades of media under transition.
In sudden-breaking stories in the past, such as the high-speed rail crash in Wenzhou, domestic Chinese media have done strong reporting despite strong and directed media controls. This generally means taking advantage of confusing situations and gaps in the government response, leaping into action before coverage of the story can be fully constrained.
But soon after the explosions in Tianjin, we heard one Chinese journalist saying: “The restrictions will come sooner or later, so we have to get a move on! Let the bans race against the truth!”
Some media, we know, had already received directives on August 13, and again on August 17 there were explicit directives demanding all journalists on the scene in Tianjin be pulled back by their respective news media, and that only “authoritative information” (meaning that issued by state media or government authorities) be used in reporting.
But propaganda restrictions were in fact limited in their effectiveness. As Qian Gang, the director of the China Media Project, observes, this crisis unfolded in an area close to the capital where media are highly concentrated, with substantial ongoing impact on the public. As large numbers of journalists quickly reached the area, the local government was powerless to control their activities. Perhaps even more importantly, in his official statement on the disaster response, published on page one of the People’s Daily on August 14, Premier Li Keqiang clearly underscored the need to “release information to society in an open and transparent manner.”
In statements following previous incidents, including the Shanghai stampede and the Yangtze River cruise ship sinking, Li Keqiang did not use similar language. And while the statement did not formally give Chinese media license to report openly—let’s not forget those directives—it did allow domestic media to push the envelope to a limited but important extent.
In the case of The Beijing News, we have a major commercial newspaper that between August 13 and 19 consistently ran reports on the Tianjin explosions and their aftermath on its front page, and over these news days ran 43 full pages of coverage. The newspaper’s reporting dealt with the human cost of the tragedy, with the facts on the ground, but also with the timely pursuit of the deeper causes, and the much more sensitive question of responsibility.
Media Ask the Tough Questions
Many of the initial questions were obvious. The extent of the damage on the scene was vast. So what were the hazardous materials that had caused the explosion? Were there still hazardous materials onsite, and to what extent? Was there a possibility they might set off further explosions? What were the risks of secondary contamination? Beyond these immediate questions, what sort of company was this Rui Hai International Logistics mentioned in the release from the Tianjin Public Security Bureau? Where were the environmental assessments it would necessarily have needed to operate? Why hadn’t they been made available? Also, what could account for the high level of casualties among firefighters?
As early as midday on August 13, The Beijing News issued a report through its public WeChat account dealing with this last question. But the report—“8 Questions: Why Are Rescue Workers Missing and Injured?”—was quickly removed by the authorities. It can still be found archived in other locations, including at Tencent News, where it is attributed to “The Beijing News new media.”
Shortly after, the newspaper posted another: “1 Question: How Could Rui Hai International Logistics’ Container Yard Restructuring Project Pass Environmental Inspection?” The article, also now apparently unavailable, questioned whether the official inspection so necessary in the case of the handling of hazardous materials had been handled properly. It also asked whether Rui Hai International Logistics might have violated environmental and safety regulations.
