In Nanyang, Henan, a fire broke out in a school dormitory, resulting in 13 fatalities. I saw online that the official Weibo accounts of Dahe Daily, Henan Daily, and Henan TV did not post anything about this fire.
I find it a bit hard to believe. Such a big event, and they don’t conduct interviews, don’t do investigations, can’t they even forward a message?
I searched the official Weibo accounts of these three media outlets, and I didn’t find any news about this accident, not a single word was mentioned, not even a repost of the official notice from the fire department.
This is a bit shocking to me.
A few days ago (January 12th), an accident also occurred in Henan. An accident occurred at the No. 12 mine of Tian’an Coal Industry Co., Ltd. in Pingdingshan, with 13 fatalities and 3 people missing. This is the report from CCTV.com:
I searched the official Weibo accounts of Dahe Daily, Henan Daily, and Henan TV again, and I was very disappointed to find that there was no news about the Pingdingshan coal mine accident either.
On Weibo, @Dahe Daily has over 20 million followers; @Henan Daily has over 6.4 million followers; @Henan TV has over 2.8 million followers. These three major media outlets in Henan are indifferent to the accidents that happened in Henan, as if they never happened.
I don’t know if this high degree of consistency is a consensus among Henan media, or a requirement from the relevant departments in Henan?
But no matter which situation it is, it is not a good phenomenon.
If we combine it with what Director Lü said a few days ago, “Don’t do cross-provincial public opinion supervision” and “Don’t watch other people’s jokes”, it is even more worrying.
If the media is indifferent to negative news in the province and does not conduct cross-provincial public opinion supervision, then the media will basically only have praise and eulogy left.
Many officials do not like public opinion supervision, especially those with problems. But the lack of public opinion supervision is not necessarily a good thing for officials either. Zhang Yilin, the former Vice Chairman of the Qianjiang District CPPCC in Chongqing, reflected after his downfall: “A biased ideology plus power lacking supervision is like a car with both the steering and brakes failing, leading me further and further down the wrong road.”
Such repentance is profound, but it comes too late, and is more like a show after being removed from office. Before this, would he have liked public opinion supervision? Would he have listened to criticism?
The school where the fire occurred was once rated as a town “Advanced Unit for Social Education”, “Advanced Private School”, county “Advanced Unit for Teachers’ Ethics Construction”, city “Advanced Unit for Composition Teaching”, and provincial “Top 100 Private Schools”. The school principal was also awarded the “Special Contribution Award for Private Education in the 30 Years of Reform and Opening Up”.
Local media had reported on this school many times, praising the school’s scientific and standardized management, and praising the school’s achievements. Such praise continued until the fire occurred. 
In the face of these thirteen lives, these walls of honor are more like a satire.
The news I saw today is that the school where the fire occurred, “the dormitory was locked during the students’ sleeping hours.”
Locking the door is a safety hazard that has attracted widespread attention from public opinion many times. But before this, did the school and the regulatory authorities not pay attention to this issue? 
Major fires in schools are often due to fire hazards and inadequate fire safety training. If the local media not only reports extensively on the school’s “advanced” aspects, but also keeps an eye on the school’s safety loopholes, and keeps an eye on whether the local fire department’s supervision of the school’s fire safety is in place, perhaps such major safety accidents would not have happened.
But now, the fire has already happened, and the person in charge of the school involved has also been controlled, but the thirteen students who died will never come back.
I’ve heard a saying before, “If the media is dirty, society may be safer.” I think there is some truth to this saying.
I would rather see the media “dirty” than see an unsafe society.
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