Wu Guangqiang

jw368@163.com

THE freer flow of information facilitated by the Internet is pushing governments worldwide to make their governance more efficient and accountable. As news travels faster than before, particularly that of major events of public concern, any delayed or incomplete official news release will cause suspicion. Attempts to cover up or distort the truth will cause unrest.

In China, quite a few local governments are bearing the brunt of public discontent and anger over their slow or insufficient disclosure of information of situations with social significance. Such incompetence often causes unnecessary disturbances, and in extreme cases, riots.

The latest instance of this nature is the awkward handling of an otherwise less-heeded fatal blaze by the local authorities.

On June 30, at 10:30 p.m., a brief piece of news appeared on Tianjin-based Web site Enorth.com.cn, saying that a fire broke out in Tianjin’s Jixian and the cause was still under investigation. The post added that according to the preliminary investigation, 10 people had been confirmed dead and 16 others were slightly injured after the fire. It was a typical bureaucratic piece — terse, dry and indifferent.

If it was understandable for a first-moment briefing to be sketchy, it was sheer absurdity for the Tianjin government’s news office to post the exact same message on its official microblog the following day. Nothing more, nothing less!

And from June 30 to July 3 there were barely any additional reports of the blaze in Tianjin’s media as if the fatal fire had never occurred.

It’s hard for me to speculate on the true reasons behind officials’ apathy and lethargy. Maybe it was ignorance of the public’s right to know, their tendency to cover up bad news, or their habitual hubris that eventually turned an accident into a man-made social crisis.

In a couple of days, another “fire” was ablaze on the Internet — all sorts of rumors spread like wildfire. As if to fill the void left by the authorities, stuff from the netizens flooded online: photos, “vivid” details and “witnesses’ descriptions.” A sensational story claiming that the death toll mounted to 378 went viral.

Eventually, the official figure proved correct and the rumormonger was punished.

But will the lesson be learned? In my view, the officials responsible must be removed from their posts. It was their ineptitude that damaged the government’s credibility. At every turn, sluggish official response to a public crisis will lead to surging public challenges to the official information. Consequently, official information is seen by many as untrustworthy.

Regular folks are not unreasonable. They loathe corruption, injustice and bureaucracy, so they long to hear the truth. It’s not hard for authorities to win hearts and minds, so long as they have their hearts set on the people.

A recent case in Shenzhen may be exemplary.

On the early morning of May 26, a speeding car slammed into two taxies — including an electric taxi — killing the driver of the e-taxi and both of the female passengers.

Though the police lost no time in releasing information about the accident, speculation still ran high over the driver’s identity, the owner of the sports car, and the likelihood of the 29-year-old driver who turned himself in being a scapegoat.

Rather than refuting rumors or hunting for rumormongers, Shenzhen police went to great lengths to clarify the fact by holding three press briefings and providing a large amount of evidence. Hard evidence soon dispelled public doubts. A score for the Shenzhen government’s credibility!

The best antidote to rumors is openness, transparency and timeliness of issuing information. To do better, the Shenzhen government opened an official microblog on Sina Weibo, China’s most popular microblogging service, on July 12. The move came less than a month after the government opened an official microblog in collaboration with Tencent, a Shenzhen-based Internet service provider.

Thirty-four government departments and public-service enterprises, such as water and electricity providers and Shenzhen Metro Co., are available to citizens through the cutting-edge media platform, further improving governance.

Hopefully, a trickle will become a flow.

(The author is an English tutor and a freelance writer.)