Fake reporters expose something rotten about today's journalists
By Wang Xiang |
April 2, 2010, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
In Shanxi Province, a leading coal producer in China, a group of self-styled reporters regularly ventured into the most clandestine, dangerous coal mines to blackmail illegal mine owners for hush money.
Sometimes these fake reporters even risked their own lives. Their otherwise little known story came to light after a mine explosion on February 18 in Yuanping County. Poisonous gas was released in the blast, killing five people and injuring three. It so happened that most of the victims were fake reporters.
One of the injured, Wang Guiyuan, who was later expelled from the Communist Party of China, apparently had issues with younger people trying to muscle in on his trade when he was interviewed by Chongqing Evening News last month.
"These rookies are hopeless and ruining the profit," he said. "They were satisfied with merely 300 yuan (US$44) and let go of the mine owners while the veterans like me could easily get paid thousands with high-level threatening tactics."
Wang showed the genuine reporters a thick deck of press cards he used. Wang could not stop shamelessly reminiscing of his "glorious past," talking as if he had done nothing wrong. But really, he and his like are not the only people to blame in the dirty game of hushing up mine blasts. GDP-hungry officials should be made responsible for the very existence of those illegal mines despite central government's repetitive calls to ban them.
Connivance
In many cases those local officials connived with illegal mine owners because the latter are great tax payers, and in some cases, great bribers. In this sense, those local officials are no different from fake reporters as they both hush up mine accidents, only in different forms.
Some real journalists have also set a bad example by seeking hush money. A court in Shijiazhuang City of Hebei Province has sentenced nine journalists - real journalists - for taking hush money to cover up a fatal mining accident on July 14, 2008 in Yuxian County of the north China Province, Xinhua reported on Tuesday. It did not say exactly when the judicial decision was made.
The journalists from eight media organizations took bribes and promised to keep quiet about an explosion that killed 34 miners. They managed to hide the accident from public view and from supervisors for 85 days. They were given jail terms ranging from 18 months to 16 years and were also banned from the news business for the rest of their lives.
Li Junqi, head of the Hebei branch of Farmer's Daily, was jailed for 16 years for taking 200,000 yuan (US$95,956) in bribes from the mine owner. The newspaper was fined 30,000 yuan and ordered to close its provincial branch in Hebei. Ren Zhiming and Wang Yuexin of China Chanjing News were convicted of taking 440,000 yuan in bribes together to keep silent about the explosion and they were jailed 12 years and 10 years respectively. Liu Wei of the Hebei Economics Daily took extortion to the authorities. He blackmailed the county's propaganda department and gained 30,000 yuan. He got two years jail term with a three-year reprieve.
Fat cats
Picture these genuine reporters who are supposed to be the rectifiers of our society but who are now racing to accident scenes not to investigate crimes but to line up at the offices of coal mine owners for a gag fee.
With their help, countless smaller tragedies and law breakers were shoved under the rug every year. It took a state-level and long-term inquiry into the Hebei cover-up to single out these rats.
Former crackdowns on Shanxi's fake reporters in 2007 were proven somehow futile, even after about 14,300 illegal publications were banned, 28 fake reporters detained and 45 fake press organizations closed in relation to hush money in the province.
Fake reporters are rats indeed, but they are no worse than those real reporters who turn out to be fat cats. In a way, those jailed reporters are just the tip of an iceberg of a larger group of Chinese journalists - real ones - who place money above everything. They do not necessarily blackmail mine owners, but red envelopes - envelopes stuffed with money from businesses and governments - are part and parcel of their life.
So long as this red envelope culture persists, you bet you will continue to see rats and cats in the future.
Sometimes these fake reporters even risked their own lives. Their otherwise little known story came to light after a mine explosion on February 18 in Yuanping County. Poisonous gas was released in the blast, killing five people and injuring three. It so happened that most of the victims were fake reporters.
One of the injured, Wang Guiyuan, who was later expelled from the Communist Party of China, apparently had issues with younger people trying to muscle in on his trade when he was interviewed by Chongqing Evening News last month.
"These rookies are hopeless and ruining the profit," he said. "They were satisfied with merely 300 yuan (US$44) and let go of the mine owners while the veterans like me could easily get paid thousands with high-level threatening tactics."
Wang showed the genuine reporters a thick deck of press cards he used. Wang could not stop shamelessly reminiscing of his "glorious past," talking as if he had done nothing wrong. But really, he and his like are not the only people to blame in the dirty game of hushing up mine blasts. GDP-hungry officials should be made responsible for the very existence of those illegal mines despite central government's repetitive calls to ban them.
Connivance
In many cases those local officials connived with illegal mine owners because the latter are great tax payers, and in some cases, great bribers. In this sense, those local officials are no different from fake reporters as they both hush up mine accidents, only in different forms.
Some real journalists have also set a bad example by seeking hush money. A court in Shijiazhuang City of Hebei Province has sentenced nine journalists - real journalists - for taking hush money to cover up a fatal mining accident on July 14, 2008 in Yuxian County of the north China Province, Xinhua reported on Tuesday. It did not say exactly when the judicial decision was made.
The journalists from eight media organizations took bribes and promised to keep quiet about an explosion that killed 34 miners. They managed to hide the accident from public view and from supervisors for 85 days. They were given jail terms ranging from 18 months to 16 years and were also banned from the news business for the rest of their lives.
Li Junqi, head of the Hebei branch of Farmer's Daily, was jailed for 16 years for taking 200,000 yuan (US$95,956) in bribes from the mine owner. The newspaper was fined 30,000 yuan and ordered to close its provincial branch in Hebei. Ren Zhiming and Wang Yuexin of China Chanjing News were convicted of taking 440,000 yuan in bribes together to keep silent about the explosion and they were jailed 12 years and 10 years respectively. Liu Wei of the Hebei Economics Daily took extortion to the authorities. He blackmailed the county's propaganda department and gained 30,000 yuan. He got two years jail term with a three-year reprieve.
Fat cats
Picture these genuine reporters who are supposed to be the rectifiers of our society but who are now racing to accident scenes not to investigate crimes but to line up at the offices of coal mine owners for a gag fee.
With their help, countless smaller tragedies and law breakers were shoved under the rug every year. It took a state-level and long-term inquiry into the Hebei cover-up to single out these rats.
Former crackdowns on Shanxi's fake reporters in 2007 were proven somehow futile, even after about 14,300 illegal publications were banned, 28 fake reporters detained and 45 fake press organizations closed in relation to hush money in the province.
Fake reporters are rats indeed, but they are no worse than those real reporters who turn out to be fat cats. In a way, those jailed reporters are just the tip of an iceberg of a larger group of Chinese journalists - real ones - who place money above everything. They do not necessarily blackmail mine owners, but red envelopes - envelopes stuffed with money from businesses and governments - are part and parcel of their life.
So long as this red envelope culture persists, you bet you will continue to see rats and cats in the future.
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