Is there any professional standard in journalism? There should be one, namely getting to facts and truth and being objective and balanced. How many reporters are practicing it?

In today's ABC World News, Stephanie Sy reported about school collapsing in the Earthquake in China. Here are roughly what she has said. "There are 6900 school that collapsed in the mid of school day. In most of them, there are few survivors". In China, an average school has from a few hundred to a few thousand students. Do your math, how many students should have died in the Earthquake according to her? A few millions at least.
Don't you think this is ridiculous? This may be brushed off as only a number's game. But how many times did she actually look at the heroic part of the human stories, the sacrifices of the rescuers and the real sympathy and empathy toward the sufferings? She could walk a street, picking up a hundred-year-old brick and breaking it, declaiming the fragile material as the cause of destruction, knowing that part of China is indeed very old. Did she provide any insight people hadn't known? There are too many undertones in her reporting, not least in mixing unrelated politics to supersede untold human tragic stories and the heroic efforts to save self and others. She's never been in any danger, standing from a safe distance albeit among the ruins. In sharp contrast, I was so moved by watching NBC's Iam Williams (Sunday's broadcast) walking dangerously along a  totally destroyed mountain road with sound of huge boulders falling down nearby and soldiers shouldering and relaying out quake victims. I couldn't control my tears watching all these devastation and sufferings and the reporter himself was obviously moved, too.

Real humanism is heart-felt and in one's soul. It is not sensational story for sale or self promotion.
This is not the first time I have seen Ms Sy reporting. In March, I almost fell off chair laughing when she declared "The Truth is Out" sounding off her reporting of Tibetan riots but standing in front of the Tibetan street in Chengdu along which I walked or rode across so many times before (I apologize I have to skip the explanation why I laughed because it will require a lot of space to explain and it is not the main topic). Ironically, the Chinese being interviewed by Ms Sy actually responded to her very well, almost spontaneously and quite enthusiastically, which, I think, for two reasons - first, she is Asian and female and people feel who can be resonated with; second, Chinese people, especially those in the countryside, are often humble and grateful to people who seem to care about them, so they treated Ms Sy as friend and poured their heart out without knowing her mixing up so much politics, most of which those people don't really care. Am I angry about those school collapsing and thousands of students having died, some unnecessarily? Of course I am, especially for those cases that corruption or pure greed may be involved. But this is different from trying to concoct a sensational impression by declaring "6900 schools collapsed, in most of them, there are few survivors" without even thinking what it means (millions of death). Perhaps she doesn't care to do the math. Whatever, this fits the pattern of her reporting.

Too many times, we have seen reporters shifting and filtering his/her camera and creating his/her own sensational stories. They walk out looking for things to fit his/her pre-set formula, or so-called selling point or view, instead of letting the story unfolding itself and them as speculators. There are too many commentators and reporters serving as judges or even self-proclaimed divines, instead of corroborating balanced views. True objectivity and self-effacing are a tough path to fame in journalism. To those who practise these principles, I salute them. Instead, journalism has become a game of personality, catering to sensations and popular inclining. How important is truth? It was said the virtue of ancient Persians was telling truth and they demised. It was claimed by Cicero that Greeks were prone to prevaricating and lying and the offsprings of the Greek civilization are still well and alive. So truth may not be worth a penny. This may sound sarcastic. So how can you blame Ms Sy facing such competition of real-world journalism? We all should read Evelyn Waugh's Scoop and get a laugh off it.