| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 新聞研究所 === 99 === English Summary
At midnight of August 8th, 2009, medium-strength Typhoon Morakot stroke Taiwan, causing 659 people dead and 40 others missing before it finally headed to China. News such as the destruction of Hsiaolin Village in Kaohsiung, which claimed nearly 500 lives, and the mudslide which buried 32 in Xinkai Village of Liukuei Township, Kaohsiung County, have left strong impressions on nearly every countryman’s mind. Because of the devastating calamities and the widespread disaster areas, the typhoon has attracted large scales of attention not only from local media, but also foreign ones.
Disasters always draw the attention of the whole society; journalists’ behavior of “advancing to the front line,” meaning going to the spot to acquire first-hand information, has been under heated discussion. This in-depth report has interviewed 18 journalists who went to the disaster areas during the Typhoon Morakot period, one of their colleague, 6 media superintendents, and 5 scholars or experts, trying to restore the scenes of interview on typhoon days, and to reflect on the circumstances of support from media organizations, as well as the working conditions of journalists and their decisions on whether to advance or not.
This in-depth report finds that the working predicaments journalists face during the period of interviewing disaster-related news include: (1) the inadequacies of (interview, safety) equipments (2) the shortage of manpower (3) the discrepancy of recognition between superintendents in the newsroom and journalists on the spot (4) the lack of labor consciousness. Under the prerequisite of regarding the events as having certain degrees of “news value,” journalists usually judge whether they will advance further depending on the following factors: (1) press time (2) the dilemma between personal security and the chase for exclusives (3) the situation of evacuation (4) the conditions of weather and environment.
From the working condition in reality, we can observe that the urgent issue journalists have to face (which they really lack when interviewing disaster-related news) may be the proper protection on personal security. The work can mostly be done by the media organizations, including carrying out security training lessons and offering safety equipments. On the individual scale, a journalist can try out various possibilities of reporting disasters, which might alleviate the pressure of “advancing.” At the same time, the government authority should use its coercive power more, to make the organizations and journalists cooperate in doing the right things. If all the elements mentioned above could consistently work out together, the working condition of journalists as well as their safety during the process of reporting disasters may have the possibility of improvement.
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