Tuesday, 16 September 2008

Tainted powdered milk

I've been reporting on the powdered milk from China that is suspected to be tainted with melamine. The story's still developing, which is exciting, but aside from the case itself, I wonder how long we'll get to report on it before everyone gets bored of it. Not long, I'm guessing. It started late at night on 12 Sep. Let's see how long it lives...

Tomorrow, I'm going to see if I can follow up on the two bakeries in Taipei that returned bags of powdered milk that were not the actual suspect products from China. One was an unmarked bag and the other had blue and white packaging was from the same distributor but was from a factory in Ukraine, rather than China. They looked very different from the plain brown bags with green lettering that were very publicly sealed and confiscated the first two days the story broke out. Somehow I don't think I'm going to be very successful in my try. Investigative reporting for TV news isn't that common in these parts, and I'm sure there is a good reason for it. Will the reason given to me be "sorry, we're understaffed, and the chances of finding answers and having images for it are slim," or "good idea, but our priority is to keep an eye on (ie harshly criticise) the government right now." I'm not being cynical, just realistic and keeping my expectations low.

Expectation management - the key to avoiding disappointment.

It's been a long day - 13 hours of almost non-stop trouble. Good night.

6 comments:

said...

michella, excuse me?

you got a wrong word in your article
keep "and" eye on?^^

Unknown said...

Ah, thank you!

said...

^^ you're welcome

tingyee said...

hello, bloghopper here, from malaysia, really nice blog and pictures, yipee! another place to kill some time!

Unknown said...

Thanks for stopping by, Tingyee!

Unknown said...

Thanks for stopping by, Tingyee!