Editor's note: Cheng Dawei is a professor at School of Economics at Renmin University of China. The article reflects the author's opinions, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

Two people walk into a room full of people and see different things: One sees a great party, the other sees a scary and unfriendly crowd. Because people have different backgrounds, expectations and needs, they frame people and events differently. Frames are important in media report, in which the same people or events can be framed in very different ways. A frame is a tool through which leading people evaluate and pursue a subsequent action.

How do you see the death of Dr. Li Wenliang? Some are seeing Dr. Li Wenliang as a whistleblower amid the COVID-19 outbreak. Western media is linking Dr. Li to politics and ideology. But, what we need to discuss is what whistleblowing is about and talk about the key, substantive issues and concerns in this event. What people should not do is frame Dr. Li for their own interests and try to shape other's orientations.

Some countries have established whistleblower systems in a specific area. For example, Japanese legislation lists whistleblowing behaviors in areas of food, health, safety and environment. In China, many laws and regulations involve the whistleblower system, some provisions are embedded in the industry legislation. For example, in 2011, the food safety office of the State Council issued a guidance on the establishment of a food safety bonus reporting system. However, China's regulations are relatively simple, mainly for social supervision.

There is no common international legal definition of what whistleblowing is. There has been some progress on whistleblower policies and practices in the United Nation system. In the UN system, whistleblowing is defined as the disclosure of misconduct/wrongdoing in the context of a work-based relationship. The reporting must be to a designated channel to constitute "protected activity." Protected activity means the reporting of misconduct and/or wrongdoing to an appropriate mechanism or body. Protected activities also include cooperating with a duly authorized investigation or audit.

Thus, we can see the UN emphasizes on building an internal whistleblowing system, and external whistle can be blown as the last resort. A report from UN's Joint Inspection Unit wrote: "Given the recurrent tendency among the media and civil society organizations to paint all United Nations system organizations with a broad brush whenever a high-profile misconduct case emerges in one organization, the reputational damage to the entire United Nations system through the imposition of collective guilt is evident." The report is talking about the most popular concern of framing a whistle-blowing case. A case can be framed in an ethnic, ideological or institutional way. The inspector should find out the major issue in the case by controlling the focus.

According to current China public health regulation, China has a public health information testing system, public health information management platform, to ensure the network report of public health emergencies and epidemic monitoring. Dr. Li and some other doctors did report their findings to a particular authority. However, the decision was still delayed. Dr. Li warned his friends in a WeChat group, the WeChat group is not a designated channel. The real issue is where multiple channels of reporting are present. Without a clear explanation of how their roles differ, people are likely to get confused and a whistleblower could be at risk and choose not to report.

My suggestion is that the construction of the whistleblower system in the field of public health should focus on the internal system. China's food safety reporting system encourages consumers to participate, its main function is social supervision, which is related to the characteristics of the food industry. The public health crisis depends more on professionals to find out the problem, and the initial solution of the problem should also rely on professional means within the system.

Currently, there are many internal problems, while personnel understood what constituted misconduct or wrongdoing, they lacked clarity on to whom report it, particularly in organizations that do not have a central unit designated to receive such reports. And some organizations have not accountability regulation of the executive head and lack protection of whistleblowers. We suggest when establishing the internal whistleblower system, the policy should be clear, the organizational structure should be clear, and the formal and bureaucratic system design should be avoided.

Is it right that Dr. Li reported to his WeChat friends? It is worth to study. Some countries adopt a "layered" approach, with the first level reporting internal issues to employers, the second level reporting to specific agencies, and the third level reporting more widely to police, media and non-designated regulators, namely external whistleblowing. We can learn from this practice, which encourages the priority of internal whistleblowing and reserves the right of external whistleblowing as a last resort.

Finally, is it right for the media to frame the whistleblowing case as a political or ideological cause? It is wrong. Let us focus on the right thing to discuss.

(If you want to contribute and have specific expertise, please contact us at opinions@cgtn.com.)