In sensitive interviews, reporters need to tread lightly

As a journalist, I once thought that the more specifics I could get and show readers, the more readable a story would be. But I found that is not always the case after five days of interviews related to the 10th anniversary of the Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan province.

When covering disaster-related stories, such as this quake from 2008, journalists need to be sensitive in their questioning of survivors and work up to the answers step by step, rather than causing pain by asking questions directly.

I read some quake-related reports before I arrived in Sichuan. Some of them, I think, had too much detail and seemed insensitive to the feelings of survivors. I also witnessed some journalists throw out questions about the quake at the beginning of their interviews - such as what the subjects did when the disaster happened and what they lost.