Shanghai pyjama fight explains how media work

Shanghai police busy
by Getty Images via DaylifeI noticed first in a sensationalist Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf a story about Shanghai municipality fighting a typical local habit, roaming around in your pyjama's during the summer. It recalls fine memories of my first morning waking up in a Shanghainese neighborhood. The first thing I saw was older people in their pyamas, running backward. For a moment I thought I had found myself back in a mental asylum, but it was not that bad.
When I noted the story in the Dutch newspaper, I was sure that something was rotten. Shanghai has bigger problems than the pyamas. Shanghainese roam around in their pyamas in the summer, not in the winter, so in terms of timing there was certainly something wrong. And they mentioned a spokersperson, whose name was rather unfamiliar.
On Google, I noted that only one news service had the story, the French newswire AFP, the more trustworthy services like Bloomberg and Reuters had ignored this breaking news. On top of that, AFP reported that only one unknown neighborhood in Shanghai Rixin was thinking about doing something about the pyjamas. Of course such a story is too small to fill newspaper pages in Europe, so the story got a bit bigger. I'm quite sure that by next week other media will be reporting about pyamas being banned in Tibet. For sure a nice example of how the media work.
It reminded me about one of the first stories in China I reported about. Western media were writing that China had banned all dogs in the country and since I was just planning to bring a Beijing dog from Holland to Beijing for a radio show, it seemed nice to investigate.
In Beijing we discovered that the "ban the dog" story originated from a park in Beijing, where dogs with rabies were killed by police, after the dogs had repeatedly attacked local citizens. Also, that story was too small and in the full weeks time the story of a nationwide ban on dogs was hitting the Western media.
I trust coming summer I will see the Shanghainese still roaming around in their pyamas.

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Making sense out of what is happening in China and Shanghai is an art in itSylvie Levey
by Fons1 via Flickrself. Leading voices at the China Speakers Bureau can help you in browse contemporary issues in a playful way. Do get in touch if you need one of them.

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