Media And The Virus: Early Reports Unclear

Michael Hedges December 21, 2020 - Follow on Twitter

Every calendar is like this. Reporters and editors - not to forget readers and viewers - far more consumed with year's end holidays, button down early in the month. Last December - 2019 - was more of the same. Most headlines and videos were generated by sports reporters, feeding the need to cheer. News - and ads - about shopping filled considerable space.

A few big headlines stood out, taking up the remaining available mental and physical space. Parliamentary elections in the UK solidifying Brexit as a major news story for yet another year, dampening spirits in certain quarters. Articles of impeachment were approved by the US House of Representatives against President Donald Trump for abuse of power, raising spirits in some quarters. China’s state media extolled the 13th Five Year Plan success while CCTV and People’s Daily praised the launch of a new aircraft carrier.

Few reporters likely saw World Health Organization (WHO) statements (December 31) about a pneumonia strain overwhelming public health facilities in Wuhan, Hubei province, China. Social media users in Wuhan and many others across China had been turning to Chinese-language portals WeChat and Weibo and YY to exchange observations and comments concerning infected family members and a lack of information from health authorities. For about two weeks it seemed that the normally ever-present social media censors were ignoring it all. More likely, noted China watchers, government authorities were as curious as everybody else. That ended by the last week of December when the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission (WMHC) reported to the WHO “a cluster of cases of pneumonia” in the city “of unclear cause.”

Sina Weibo is a micro-blogging portal, like Twitter. It has about half a billion active monthly users. Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba acquired about 30% of its shares in 2014 when listed on the NASDAQ exchange. Weibo has always been cautious to not offend Chinese censors. WeChat, the multi-functional mobile messaging and payments portal, has about a billion users. It is owned by Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent. More like YouTube, YY Live is a live-streaming video platform. It was recently acquired by Baidu for US$3.6 billion.YY Live has about 300 million regular users.

On January 3rd, local Wuhan authorities “reprimanded” physician Li Wenliang for “spreading false statements about the outbreak online” for a post on Weibo (December 30). He had received clinical data from another doctor, Ai Fen, director of the hospital’s emergency care department, who had complained to supervisors of health worker’s exposure. Dr. Li succumbed to the novel coronavirus on February 7. Chinese magazine Renwu (People) published an account (February 15) and referred to Dr. Ai as “The Whistle Giver.” It was officially censored but clever social media users transposed the text into different languages, even pictograms.

Chinese media being completely controlled by government authorities or the Chinese Communist Party, reasonably independent reporting is limited to “approved” outlets like investigative portal Caixin and quasi-state online TV channel Phoenix TV. Caixin Global, the English-language version, questioned the response of public health authorities (January 30) and official Wuhan death tolls (March 31). Beijing-based Renwu is a monthly investigative magazine. State media generally avoided reporting on the coronavirus until turning quite defensive in January.

This left nearby Hong Kong media outlets. English-language South China Morning Post (SCMP) and bi-lingual Apple Daily are often quoted independent news sources. SCMP reported (December 31, 2019) the “mystery illness” spreading in Wuhan. The outlet also reported on-site during the Wuhan lockdown. Widely-read tabloid Apple Daily extensively reported on Chinese government censorship. International news outlets followed about a week later. On January 6th, CNN noted a “mysterious outbreak” of a “new virus.”

SCMP has been published in Hong Kong since 1903, when the island was a British colony, subsequently ceded to the PRC in 1997.. The newspaper has undergone several ownership changes in recent years, including a brief proprietorship interlude with News Corp. In 2016 e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, principally controlled by noted billionaire Jack Ma, acquired SCMP. Its reporting on the coronavirus outbreaks has remained cautious. Citing financial disruption due to the resulting economic slowdown, the online edition returned a paywall in June 2020, effectively disenfranchising casual readers.

The Hong Kong pro-democracy movement has been the lead story for Apple Daily over many months. Demonstrations followed by mass arrests coincided with the coronavirus outbreak and the “Law Safeguarding the National Security.” Provisions include suppression of reporting critical of the Hong Kong government as well as the PRC. Apple Daily’s offices were raided in August, the 200 security services officers caught on soon-to-be viral video. A day earlier, publisher/founder Jimmy Lai was arrested under the new law for “foreign collusion.”

At a press conference WMHC officials noted the first death from coronavirus, reported state news agency Xinhua (January 11). Trains, airplanes and busses as well as terminals would undergo extensive disinfecting, the officials said, ahead of China’s most important public holiday - the 40 day Lunar New Year/Spring Festival - to “further ensure the health of passengers.” “Fever screenings” were implemented two days later at Wuhan International Airport, the major air hub for central China. Within days Lunar New Year celebrations were cancelled in major Chinese cities.

Cases of novel coronavirus were being reported broadly in Asia by mid-January. The first in Thailand was a traveller from Wuhan, reported Bangkok Post (January 13). As cases in Thailand quickly rose, airport screening began for passengers from China, reported Reuters (January 28). By then coronavirus cases had also been reported in Australia, Canada, France, Japan, South Korea and the United States as well as in Chinese cities of Beijing and Shanghai. The first coronavirus-related death outside China occurred in the Philippines, reported Reuters (February 1). By the end of January, coronavirus cases had been reported in 27 countries, according to the the WHO, which declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. Two weeks later (February 11), the WHO renamed the virus COVID-19; “co” for coronavirus, “vi” for virus, “d” for disease, “19” for the year.

Most reporters and editors remember precisely when news of the novel coronavirus strain first came to their attention. For TV2 (Denmark) news editor Jakob Tage Ramlyng it was a telephone call in the middle of the night, February 25th. He had tested positive for coronavirus, the first Dane. “We thought it was a lie,” he said to public broadcaster DR (February 27). “It simply could not be right.”

He and his family had been on a ski holiday in Italy. When they returned to Denmark all seemed normal. He went to work. “I agreed with the bosses to keep an extra eye on myself, and then I started to feel bad. Then it was not long before I was out the door.” Outbreaks in northern Italian ski resorts forced a “quasi-quarantine” in the region.

Around a hundred TV2 employees were interviewed the next day by the public health service and 16 were sent home on 14-day quarantine. His Sunday news program was cancelled. "It's wild for once to have the full picture and then see how it is made,” he said to journalisten.dk (March 2). “But by far most of it has been true, there were just some places where you think, shit! It was damn annoying that it came out the wrong way and that it has not been corrected subsequently.”

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• Hot Topics - Media in China

• Hot Topics - Media and the Virus