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Quotes and bites from life's edge

By Li Xing (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-05-22 07:22

The race against time to save lives began ever since the Wenchuan earthquake struck a great part of Sichuan as well as neighboring Gansu, Shaanxi and Yunnan provinces on May 12.

As we watch the whole rescue operation unfold through the media, many of us cannot help shedding tears over the great tragedy that the natural disaster has caused and, above all, over the great sacrifice a lot of people have made while working on the frontline.

We hear about Huang Baowu, a doctor who, though losing nine members of his family, quickly joined a local medical team to treat the wounded. He did not even have time to dress his own wounds, as the camera caught the blood on his right foot on Sunday.

We also hear moving stories of teachers, some of whom sacrificed their lives to save the lives of their students, while others rescued their students without giving any thoughts to their beloved parents or children.

While the media have been lauding such heroism and idealism, I believe we should also highlight the fact that the great courage associated with the work of these heroes and heroines also comes from professionalism.

The word "professionalism" is defined as professional character, spirit, methods, or conduct, aims or qualities that characterize or mark a profession or a professional person.

That is to say, professionalism dictates professionals' work and their ethics.

A doctor's duty is to save lives. Especially in times of severe natural disasters when hundreds of thousands of lives are at stake, there is no time for medical workers like Huang Baowu to withdraw himself in a safe haven to cry for his own loss. His call of duty can only inspire him to throw himself in the rescue effort.

Teachers have the duty to protect students. When many school buildings were shaking and crumbling down, it was not surprising that many teachers had the first instinct to lead their students out of the shaken school buildings.

It is heartening that most of the people on the frontline of the rescue work, from firefighters to professional rescue workers from China Seismological Bureau, from People's Liberation Army generals to soldiers, from doctors to nurses, have displayed not only their bravery and self-sacrifice but also their professionalism.

And many of us are also thankful for all the stories that have been relayed to us by journalists, who have also risked their lives and endured hardship to give the public as complete pictures and scenes of the earthquake-ravaged area as possible.

But clearly, this is also a time of great challenges to journalism as a profession.

To follow their professional dictates, reporters must follow the ever-breaking news leads and probe deeper into the hearts and minds of people affected by the earthquake. They have been seen talking with people still trapped in or just pulled out of the rubble, sometimes asking impertinent questions. They have also been shown going after children, who are either orphaned or separated from their parents.

As a journalist, I myself have the inclination to support the work of my colleagues but I know that many in public do not approve the work of some of these reporters. In fact, people, especially the netizens, have started questioning whether journalists should enter operation rooms.

The most controversial was the more than half an hour of interview that a TV crew conducted with Chen Jian while the 26-year-old man was still underneath a huge slab of concrete. Chen was alive for 80 hours but he died after being pulled out. There have been questions whether this interview was appropriate even if we believe the TV footage is a great human-interest story.

As a professional, I have no ready answers, even though I know the race is still continuing to save the lives.

E-mail: lixing@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 05/22/2008 page9)