Mapping Journalistic Professionalism in a Crisis: The Case of Sichuan Earthquake Reporting he Case of Sichuan Earthquake Reporting

In May 12, 2008, the Sichuan province in China had a major earthquake. About 90,000 people died and were missing. More than 200 reporters and technical support staff from Hong Kong were sent to the scene to cover the earthquake, and many journalists were involved in the story in the Hong Kong headquarters. This study aims at mapping the essential elements of journalistic professionalism in the context of a crisis, and tries to understand if it is different from the routine mode of news coverage. Discussion about journalistic professionalism is abundant in the literature but empirical studies are few. A questionnaire survey was conducted in July and August of 2008 among the Hong Kong journalists who took part in the earthquake coverage. A total of 194 questionnaires were collected, representing a response rate of 56%. This paper uses 21 measuring items in the questionnaire to gauge journalistic professionalism. These 21 items include: integrity, trustworthiness, responsibility, reliability, accountability, honor, duty, relationship with audience, relationship with news source, relationship with staff and colleague, respect, excellence, emotional stability, compassion, vigilance, problemsolving, virtue, prudence, temperance, altruism, and charity. Factor analysis of these 21 items reveals four factors in normal newswork: (1) work ethics, (2) relations, (3) self actualization, and (4) emotion toward others. But in the crisis situation such as covering the earthquake, there are seven factors: (1) relations, (2) emotion toward others, (3) vigilance, (4) self actualization and altruism, (5) respect and responsibility, (6) credibility, and (7) accountability. Comparing the results from the two factor analyses, three factors are identical but normal work ethics is divided into four smaller factors in the crisis mode. These items are borrowed (and slighted revised) from the medical field and thus comparison can be made between the two fields. It is found that professionalism in the medical field has seven essential elements: (1) in search of excellence, (2) humanitarianism, (3) accountability, (4) altruism, (5) ethics and legal understanding, (6) communication techniques, and (7) medical knowledge. It seems that both medicine and journalism stress on work ethics (accountability and reliability), respect and relations. But journalism is more keen on dealing with others’ emotional relations and self actualization, while medicine has more to do with in search of excellence, integrity, and altruism. We also find that Hong Kong’s own culture has shaped its journalistic professionalism, which has a clear pragmatic element. Specifically, Hong Kong journalists emphasize responsibility and have a strong sense to “get the job done”. They do not have strong idealistic tendency but are rational oriented. Hong Kong journalists are efficient, aggressive and flexible. They care about the victims in the earthquake and even show some degree of altruism. They know what to do and what not to do. This pragmatic strand of professionalism is related to the “core values” of Hong Kong.