Best: China Digital Times
Worst: State Environmental Protection Administration
Concerning China, I would say that the China Digital Times is the better of the two because not only are its articles headlined and presented to readers, every article in its "Environmental Crisis" has been scouted out (by graduate students at UC Berkeley, no less) and given a quick write up, and in some cases, the articles are even translated from other languages. This is immensely beneficial to English-only speakers. Most articles are linked from other websites, but the amount of effort afforded Chinese environmental news by the China Digital Times is quite extraordinary, especially considering that it is one of the few websites that has concrete environmental information from China in English. The website has a prolific amount of information on the environment, with highlighted stories, hot topics, editors picks, videos, and even podcasts. Every article comes has a “related articles” section at the bottom, which is very useful for readers to be able to get to know more about the subject a article is about. Aesthetically, the site is well organized and approachable; nothing is exceedingly attractive to the eye, but at the same time nothing is so overwhelming as to distract the reader. The site has a stylish logo with a nice blue, green, and white color scheme. Most articles have a corresponding picture, which helps aid the reader to engross him or herself in the articles. The site has only a few advertisements for books reviewed and recommended by various people.
Of particular interest to me was an article on the effects of China’s climate change. The article was posted on the China Digital Times by Xiao Qiang, with the actual article being linked from BBC News. While the article on the actual BBC News website lacks the writer’s identification and a copyright statement, it is still from BBC, which is a credible news source. The article explains that 300,000 people are short of drinking water due to the warmest winter climate China has experienced in 30 years, according to the Chinese state media. The article states that China’s top meteorologist, Qin Dahe, believes that the dry and warm weather in northern China is related to global warming. In the article, Qin also states that the Chinese government is taking this climate change seriously, but that changing the country’s energy structure would be very costly. Another article that I found to be interesting was one posted by Sophie Beach, which was linked from Voice of America. Unfortunately, the link was not working at the time of this writing, but fortunately the entire article was short enough that it could be posted in its entirety right on the China Digital Times. The article highlights the fact that one of China’s environmental problems is that a third of China’s water is not suitable for agriculture or industry, and that 300 million people drink contaminated water on a daily basis. The vast wealth of articles like these that allow me to give the China Digital Times my higher recommendation, and the fact that the China Digital Times is not affiliated with the Chinese government helps this recommendation.
SEPA on the other hand, while being thorough and informative, is run by the Chinese government; which, as this class has taught me and my fellow classmates, makes the site not in the reader's benefit, but rather the Chinese government's. That being said, the site is directly from China, and it benefits from this by being able to give information on standards, laws, and institutions (such as social organizations and human resources).
Being a government website, SEPA has no advertisements, and its aesthetic quality is a bit lacking, with the site being presented in a red and white color scheme with only a few graphics of greenery, air, and sunlight. That being said, what the site lacks in attractive qualities, it makes up for with solid environmental information that can only come from China itself. The front page has a section devoted to up to date news releases on the environment, a side feature that gives current air quality updates, and links to sections for internal affairs, water quality, and minister’s speeches. Unfortunately, the water quality link was not working at the time of this writing.
SEPA’s articles are free of grammatical and spelling errors, and the writing quality is quite good, with the articles not being stale or boring, which some might expect from a government website. Still, the site does not exude life the way the China Digital Times does. Many articles are from SEPA itself, but some are from outside sources that are sited at the end of the articles, such as the Xinhua News Agency. Many articles come in the form of warnings from SEPA, such as an article on the Chinese government investigating the dumping of waste into south China by Britain and cracking down on illegal imports, while others are of a calmer tone, such as an article on how the Chinese military saved millions of dollars on energy through scientific and technological advances.
While SEPA does a great job in relaying information to its readers, the site’s lack of life and sub par presentation in terms of aesthetics, combined with the fact that it is a government website that is concerned with the Chinese government first and the reader second makes it the inferior of the two websites.
I would give the China Digital Times a rating of eight and SEPA a rating of six and a half. I don’t foresee much changes for either sites due to their nature, but the China Digital Times could improve by making sure all their links work and continuing to improve on their good formula. The SEPA could make an attempt to be a bit more exiting in presentation with more pictures and graphics on the site.
Best: Birds Korea
Worst: Chosun Ilbo
For the Korean websites, I found Birds Korea (which is more sophisticated than it sounds) and the Chosun Ilbo, which although it does not feature a separate section for environmental news, searching its database does bring up articles on both North and South Korean environmental issues. (click this link right here and search for "environment" to easily find articles).
Birds Korea is not necessarily a news website, and as its name implies, it is a site devoted to the conservation of birds and wise use of natural resources. Its “about” section explains that Birds Korea surveys birds in South Korea in various places, gathers information, and helps to develop eco-tourism and public awareness of birds, and produces online and offline reports, among other things. In its environment news section, Birds Korea has surprising amount of documents that would thrill anybody wanting to know about Korean environment news. Unfortunately, the site does not have articles that are written by people within Birds Korea, and instead the news articles are from other websites. They are not linked from their original websites, but they are reproduced in their entirety with the name of the writer (if given in the original article), where it originally was from, and the date of its writing. Most, articles, but not all, pertain to South and North Korea, with some articles dealing with environmental information from other East Asian countries. While this does hurt the site as a definitive source of environmental news from the Korean countries, the fact that it does make an attempt to gather environmental news makes it worthy of my recommendation, as there are few websites in English for Korean environmental news. One particular article that caught my eye was entitled Seoul: Heart and Soul of the City, written by John Vidal and originally ran in The Guardian from the U.K. The article explains how the Cheonggyecheon river, which around 50 years ago used to be as polluted as a swamp, is now clean enough to play in.
Birds Korea is a bit on the basic side in terms of presentation, as there are no photos to accompany the articles. In fact, the only graphic on the environment news section is the logo of the website itself, which is not much to look at. There are few advertisements on the website as a whole, with the few that exist on the homepage pertaining to the website itself and other bird and habitat websites.
The Chosun Ilbo is a full-fledged news website, but it is not very geared toward environmental issues, and as stated before, finding news articles pertaining to Korean environmental matters on Chosun Ilbo essentially requires searching its database, and the amount of articles on the subject are limited, which forces me to recognize Birds Korea as the superior of the two websites for somebody looking for Korean environmental news in English. The Chosun Ilbo does posses a superior website design and layout in comparison to Birds Korea; whereas Birds Korea has all of its articles on one single webpage that requires lots of scrolling up and down, the Chosun Ilbo has individual pages for its articles, with the option to email and obtain a printer-friendly version of the article at the bottom of any given article. Additionally, the Chosun Ilbo’s white and blue color scheme is more attractive than Birds Korea’s green scheme.
A couple of articles that caught my attention were one on ecotourism, and another on Chinese pollutants causing acid rain in Korea. The article on ecotourism, which is cited as being from Arirang News, explains that the country’s demilitarized zone has been speculated to be the site of a natural attraction, while the latter, also cited as being from Arirang News, explains that 55 percent of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxides that caused acid rain in Korea in March 2002 was from China, and that air pollutants from Korea have traveled to China. Both articles are short in length, but feature quality writing free of spelling and grammatical errors. The advertising that exists on these environmental articles is sparse, with a few adds sponsored by Google at the bottom of the articles and one at the top for home appliances.
I would give Birds Korea a rating of six and Chosun Ilbo a rating of five as a site for environmental news. Birds Korea could feature more articles on Korea specifically and better presentation. The Chosun Ilbo is fine as a regular news website, but it really should look into featuring more and longer environmental articles because a reader-base for environmental articles does exist.
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