Shanghai Daily awards, Best Story, June

Date:2006-07-31

Editor’s Note:

The Best Stories, Best Page and Best Online Story Awards for June have been announced. The Best Stories of the Month go to “Good Samaritan almost loses his car in a sting” (A2, June 22): reporter: Dong Zhen, and “Inflationary pressure not by-product of China’s pollution prevention” (A6, June 7): reporter: Wang Yanlin.

Best Page goes to the Technology Page “Viewers spoilt for choice 2006” (B5, June 2): page editor: Yang Xiaojun, reporter: Zhu Shenshen and Wang Yee Fong, designer: Chen Jie.

This month, the judging board added a Best Online Story Award. The first winner for June goes to “City boasts 3 more national heritage sites,” (A1, June 2) reporter: Zhu Moqing.

The Editor’s Desk blog will run a four part series to introduce the stories and the journalists behind them.

Part 2

This Best Story Award is the second for our opinion reporter Wang Yanlin, since the Best Awards were created. Her story discussed whether China’s pollution prevention will cause global inflationary pressure.

When the topic was first assigned to Wang, she knew it would be a tough assignment. It is not always easy to make economic topics clear and concise in an article. “In this case, Morgan Stanley and Bloomberg made their points quite reasonably, but after a second glance, I realized that the information released was false. So I decided to interview more experts to make my argument fair and solid,” said Wang.

Reporters often spend most of their time interviewing and in this case, Wang did. She said: “These types of economic professionals are quite unavailable. Only a professor from Fudan University, one out of the four experts I talked to, was in Shanghai at that time. The rest of the interviewers I conducted were made via telephone and email.”

Wang finished her last interview with David Dollar from the World Bank only one day before her deadline.

“Above all, she did an excellent job checking the background information. The statements from the senior experts weigh a lot in her article thus making a stronger argument. Besides, the structure helps readers follow the long story that discusses many abstract terms,” commented Zhu Huanian one of Shanghai Daily’s Best Story and Page judges.

Thanks to the successful interviews, Wang smoothly worked out her article in one day. She was also quick to mention her boss, Wang Yong, who had been really instructive by offering her some good ideas and background information.

“Winning a Best Story gives me such a sense of achievement, but on the other hand I see more challenges. I know many more stories are just waiting for me to dig them up,” Wang added with a smirk.

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Inflationary pressure not by-product of China’s pollution prevention

Andy Xie, Hong Kong-based chief economist of Morgan Stanley, has predicted that China's battle with pollution may well fan global inflation.

In a commentary by Bloomberg columnist William Pesek Jr, released on May 26, Xie was quoted as saying that China's production costs will inevitably surge if pollution is to be curbed. Moreover, the higher costs will translate into global inflation via Chinese exports.

"China has kept the global cost of production artificially low by not paying for pollution and labor benefits. The pressure within China is as such that the government is normalizing production costs, which could boost global inflation," Xie was quoted as saying.

Pesek further listed China's pollution battle as one of the three main causes of possible global inflation, the other two being "surging prices for commodities from crude oil to copper to cocoa and the property booms from New York to Sydney."

Certainly, the cost of water and energy will go up in China as it enhances its battle against pollution. But the Bloomberg commentary, large

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