The press conference on the Hu Xinyu incident attracted public attention due to the actions of a reporter. As the press conference was nearing its end, the reporter, who was sitting in a prominent position in the third row but had not been given the opportunity to ask a question, stood up and raised his hand, hoping to be “noticed” by the host.
Some netizens gave him the nickname “Stubborn Reporter”, and an article titled “Hu Xinyu Incident Press Conference, I feel sorry for this stubborn reporter, is it not within the plan to ask questions?” also went viral on WeChat Moments.
I watched the nearly 50-minute press conference video with great interest and noticed that a reporter sitting in the second row was also eye-catching. Almost every time there was a question-and-answer session, he would raise his right hand high, always maintaining his enthusiastic work spirit.
In the closing stages of the press conference, this guy finally gave up and stopped raising his hand to ask questions. But the reporter friend in the third row, mentioned at the beginning, was still persistently asking questions. In order to attract the host’s attention, he hurriedly stood up and raised his right hand high above his head—but this scene was quickly cut away by CCTV. In the end, he still didn’t get the chance to ask questions, and the officials on the stage also left quietly in the same way, “standing up” and holding the answer script.
These two reporters’ raised right hands demonstrate a very rare and very moving professional quality in the current media industry.
I noticed that the first three opportunities to ask questions were given to People’s Daily, Xinhua News Agency, and CCTV respectively. The order in which the questioners appeared hinted that the live press conference had been “pre-designed”.
As the author of the WeChat public account “Old News Commentary”, which I particularly like and is as sharp as a scalpel, said: “Is it more effective to hold a live press conference than a simple text report? We also saw that the people attending the meeting all read out prepared materials, strictly limiting the free Q&A of the press conference, which is equivalent to turning a pure text release into a pure text video version. Why is this?”
One guess is that CCTV has a high degree of involvement in this public opinion handling, and as a propaganda platform built on video materials, it has a professional pursuit of the entire video presentation. Moreover, when persuading Jiangxi to accept the press conference, it is possible to persuade them with two axioms: 1. It is not difficult to borrow the common mode of the epidemic press conference, 2. The press conference is more persuasive than the paper report.”
But this rigid form of communication will not make the audience feel convinced. The general viewing experience of the public is: the three powerful central media monopolized and controlled the questions. And, the reporters who received the opportunity to ask questions were also mostly reading from the script, reading from their phone screens or notebooks.
People’s Daily reporter asking questions
CCTV reporter asking questions
This is very much like a 3D presentation of a text report, and the press conference has thus lost its “original meaning”: the questioner and the answerer failed to achieve true real-time interaction on the stage, but instead became a strange Siri voice. And the many media present who did not get the opportunity to ask questions are more like brand endorsements invited to stand on the stage for this press conference.
However, the reporters who raised their right hands and insisted on asking questions obviously did not want to accept the design and arrangement of the “unspoken rules”. They do not consider whether the press conference scene was pre-arranged or whether the conference process was rehearsed in advance.
They just ask questions.
This is the responsibility of the “uncrowned king”—just like the responsibility of the police, it should give the missing child’s mother a very credible explanation.
Here I would like to say a few more words: It is absolutely justified for a mother to ask the relevant departments for the truth about her child’s death. Especially after experiencing a series of events such as the school’s vague statements, the “malfunctioning” of the monitoring equipment, and the failure of a large-scale search of thousands of people, Hu Xinyu’s family’s reasonable doubts about the school and the public power organs based on the above existing facts are completely justified. The unreasonable accusations and vulgar cyber violence against Hu Xinyu’s family by online mobs are also unacceptable.
I would like to emphasize again that the right of Hu Xinyu’s mother to seek the truth about her son’s death should be defended and protected.
As Hu Xinyu’s uncle said: “The family just wants to see the evidence, so as to eliminate the doubts in their hearts.”
Let’s go back to the “stubborn reporter” question incident. The host of the press conference should not give special attention to the central media based on their media level. After all, the right to ask questions for all reporters should be “universal”, and should not be a special grant and gift.
Even, we can see from the replay video that when the first round of questions appeared, even if the People’s Daily reporter’s hand was not raised obviously, the microphone was “smoothly” handed to him.
People’s Daily reporter easily gets the opportunity to ask questions
Obviously, the “sensible” host demonstrated super strong control ability, and would not allow even a drop of tea to be spilled on the rostrum. After the leaders on the stage answered 7 questions “in order”, even in the face of the requests of many reporters to raise their hands to ask questions, the host also ended the conference hastily with the reason of “time constraints”.
But, in the face of this focal event that concerns the whole country, who would think that “time” is a problem?
Can the 50-minute press conference content eliminate all doubts? Or is it that the content of the officials’ answers on the stage is only enough to support a 50-minute duration, and there is no way to play overtime, so they can only end on time?
But at the same time, we are also pleased to see that these two “stubborn reporters” did not understand—or were not prepared to understand—this layer of “meeting intention”. From beginning to end, they always believed in the “explicit rules” of the press conference, and were unwilling to cooperate with the performance and follow the so-called “unspoken rules”.
In fact, we can also see from the live broadcast screen that not only these two reporters, but also many colleagues were desperately raising their hands throughout the press conference, trying to salvage the almost impossible opportunity to ask questions.
These reporters are undoubtedly respectable. They are “heartfelt” rather than “going through the motions”.
These people with their right hands raised straight up are like holding up a torch of light. They have light in their hearts, and their lives are sincere. Despite repeated failures to ask questions, they still know that it is impossible to do so. They followed professional ethics, upheld industry rights, defended the dignity of journalists, and showed the last bit of stubborn pride.
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