Abstract
ABSTRACT While “ears-and-eyes” and “mouthpieces” are two normative roles of Chinese journalists, the latter has long been more emphasized in the mobilization model of disaster reporting. Based on in-depth interviews with Chinese journalists who witnessed city lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study examines how they performed the two roles to determine the extent to which their witnessing experiences could be transformed into media discourses. It argues that journalists’ bearing witness on disaster sites presupposed not only eyewitnessing but also earwitnessing in the form of survivor interviewing, fact checking, and truth investigation. While the “mouthpiece” orientation of news media may have obscured the potential of journalistic witnessing for timely exposing public suffering, there existed journalist-media negotiations on performing the two roles. Highlighting the role asymmetry between “ears-and-eyes” and “mouthpieces”, this study examines the veracity gap in Chinese journalists’ witnessing practice that derives from the tension between journalistic autonomy and structural restraints, which may contribute to the further theorization of journalistic witnessing.
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