今日 (7月22日) 紐約時報給我的 Morning Briefing中，第一則就是關於河南鄭州澇災。原文為下：

Floods trap train passengers in China

At least 25 people died in and around Zhengzhou, a city of five million and the capital of Henan Province, when the heaviest rainfall on record caused severe flooding. Twelve of the victims were stuck on a subway train when waters rose.

The terror began on Tuesday evening when floodwaters breached a retaining wall near an entrance to the subway’s Line 5, which makes a loop around the city center. The water poured into the system between two stations, flooding the train.

Trapped passengers posted videos as the disaster unfolded. Other photographs and videos — some later apparently removed by censors — showed several lifeless bodies on a subway platform. (災情開始就有受困旅客傳出視頻。其他視頻與照片，有些顯然之後被審查單位移除，顯示地鐵站月台上有幾具無生命跡象的人體)

Passengers called relatives or emergency services while they waited to be rescued from chest-deep floodwaters. After two hours, survivors said, it became difficult to breathe in the remaining congested air.

The response: China’s leader, Xi Jinping, ordered the authorities to give top priority to people’s safety and called the flooding “very severe.” Although flooding is common in China, researchers have attributed the extreme weather sweeping the planet to the consequences of climate change.

In other climate news: Wildfire smoke from the Western U.S. and Canada spread to the East Coast and triggered health alerts from Toronto to Philadelphia. A state of emergency was declared in the Canadian province of British Columbia after wildfire evacuation orders.

我想絕大多數台灣的讀者對那段黃底的字句，一定又想老共對實際災情與傷亡又展開掩飾的伎倆了，甚至可能因此而加深大陸言論自由的限制或相較之下言論自由的可貴的看法。

可是，大眾有必要親眼目睹那些傷亡的照片？文字敘述傷亡並不夠、還要加上傷亡的現場照片才能稱之為完整報導、或言論自由？

台灣新聞媒體，常常不僅用赤裸的文字，還要加上傷亡的照片 (雖然可能用馬賽克處理)，來對事故的情況做敘述與報導，好像不這麼做就不真實、不完整。所以傷亡不僅只是傷亡，還要說明是慘遭夾心 (車禍)、血濺當場 (墜落)、燒成焦屍 (火災)……。

報導是傷或亡，便已足夠。如何傷亡與其細節，是究責相關單位與人員的事，一般民眾並無需要知其細節。

媒體對“知”做營利，也應維持對“人”的尊重。阿彌陀佛。