In 2008 it was unusual for breaking news to arrive via your phone. Facebook and Twitter werealready blocked to most Chinese internet users. Weibo, which has been called the Chineseversion of Twitter, did not yet exist. Neither did WeChat — now China’s most widely used socialmedia platform and the one on which I heard about last week’s tragedy in Tianjin. It would notbe launched for more than two years.

2008年时，通过手机收到突发资讯还不常见。大多数中国网民已经无法使用Facebook和Twitter。被称为中国版Twitter的微博(Weibo)还未诞生，也没有微信(WeChat)——两年多后微信才问世，如今已是中国使用最广的社交媒体平台。也正是通过微信，我得知了上周发生在天津的惨剧。

A week after my friend’s distraught call, I went to Sichuan with a group of fellow reporters toreport on the aftermath of the earthquake. The closer I got to the reality of the disaster, themore distant I was from information about it: we were on the move constantly with no radioand no newspapers; my mobile phone was disconnected quite often due to bad reception.

接到朋友焦虑不安的电话一周后，我和一群记者同行赶赴四川，报道震后灾情。我越接近灾难现场，就离这场灾难的信息越远：我们一路奔波，听不到广播，也没有报纸;由于信号不好，我的手机经常连不上网络。

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