stories of protests by parents of students killed in the Sichuan
earthquake. Apparently many of the schools that fell were the only
structures in their respective areas to suffer such catastrophic
damage. Since schools are the kinds of things that get built en masse
via government contract, it immediately pointed to the potential for
corruption in the construction planning process.
It bothered me in the wake of the earthquake that the news coverage
focused only on the heroic efforts of rescuers, and not on critical
questions such as why the building codes weren't up to the task of
withstanding a high magnitude earthquake such as many important
structures in San Francisco are designed to handle. A semi-analogous
US disaster in recent memory was Hurricane Katrina. There was much
more anger as to why the levees didn't hold water through the storm
than similar coverage for the China quake. To get an idea of how the
Chinese media responded to the disaster, consider this: Imagine if for
one night s
television network wiped away all other broadcasted programming in
favor of airing the same telethon benefit event identically on all
channels, where the theme of the event was an emphatically displayed
and repeatedly exclaimed, 'I am American!', presented amid
sensational images of the disaster and rescue attempts. This the
evening of the day that every car driver in every US city was required
to simultaneously stop completely while maintaining a constant honk on
their horn for three minutes straight in memory of the disaster. To me
this sounds fanciful, or just plain strange, but it's what took place
in China after the earthquake.
Turns out, as Western papers reported, local Chinese media
establishments were being instructed by the government's media arm not
to air coverage critical of why buildings weren't constructed to
withstand earthquakes. Instead, only themes promoting unity got
through.
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