Action to the Earthquake & Change of the News Sources---finally something came from China government I almost feel satisfied

This article is partially translated excerpt from Gao Song's editorial "Wenchuan Earthquake: The Change of China's Image". Original Chinese source is available at http://www.ftchinese.com/sc/story.jsp?id=001019302&pos=DAILY_NEWS&pa1=mainnews&pa2=0&loc=DAILY%20EMAIL&pa5=hq@ftchinese.com

I selected some important or conclusive information from the original article and named this post. There are many aspects of the behavior or attitude of Chinese government I highly disagree or feel uncomfortable with in the past couple of mouths, but in the earthquake case, I really almost satisfied with my government.

The following is from the original text:
'The deadly earthquake that rocked Sichuan and felt all across China and beyond, has left 9,219 people dead'. 'The mobilization system inside of the central government at this time has been very different from before.' 'Lots of signs have shown that when facing the natural disasters, Chinese government is trying to change the old way of blocking news or delaying the disclosure of news in order to gain the imitative of the media.'

'Xinhua website began to release news 18 mins after the Wenchuan earthquake. Couple of hours later, Sina, Tencent and other famous Chinese websites had already put tons of updated news and safety tips for earthquake onto their front pages. Besides the news from Xinhua journalists, large amount of news were from the websites of major cities' newspaper offices.' 'In the past, these kinds of contents would only be published online after they appeared on the newspaper.'

'In China, this is a very rare occasion that the reaction of media is faster than the speed of rescue and investigation of the administration department.' 'From Beijing to the remote Guizhou province, it is shown that the whold system uses prompt, open and accurate information as the key to settle the public. TV, internet, even the text msg by cell are the channels of the official information.'

'2008 for China is not a easy year. The influence from the snow and ice disaster early this year hasn't fully recovered, and this killer quake is coming suddenly. But compared with the closed and retard reaction to the snow disaster, the reaction to this earthquake is totally different, especially the response information the public, and it is impressive to the observer.'

'Some web media have encouraged the bloggers who are in the affected region recorded what they saw and published those blog posts. This might not be surprise in western, but for China, it might be very significant. The Internet in China proved its mainstream position again, not by the level of administration, but by the massive information and the methods of dealing with news.'

'There are other negative information spreading through the Internet. For example, Sichuan media had reported abnormal signs like big scale migration of toads, but it was explained as normal phenomenon by the related origination. Another example, a research wording in the China Earthquake Bureau wrote a paper five years ago, which reminded that the condition for the next earthquake above 7 magnitude in Sichuan is approach maturity. '

'The earthquake of Tangshan in 1976 has been mentioned as comparison with this Wenchuan earthquake. The news blocking in Culture Revolution reached the peak: the journalists were not allowed to enter the affected region and the journalists who entered there were under strict rules---no pictures of people were allowed.'

'Two weeks ago, was put into practice. According to this regulation, it is the responsibility and obligation for the government to report information promptly about abrupt events. But the reality is not that ideal: some famous local media, which had impressive performance in all kinds of disaster reports before, were not allowed to send journalists to the affected region by central propaganda system. It is obvious that without the approval from the central officials, the various participation from media are still limited, and it is absolutely beneficial for the current rescue and the following charity donation mobilization from the government to remove the limits.'