Two interesting articles have emerged in the last couple of days with regards to the great cardboard bun scandal. Both have to do with the navel gazing that the episode has prompted in China's media, as well as the relatively predictable government reaction.

From David Bandurski of the consistently useful China Media Project, there is a post on the Party's response to the scandal, and to CCTV's apparent summary dismissal of all non-contract staff:

In related news, CMP learned from sources within the Chinese media that China Central Television, responding to the cardboard bun story, recently issued an internal order that all non-contract journalists working with the network be dismissed by July 27. One CMP source referred to the move as the "massacre of the freelancers."

It's a hard time to be a TV stringer in China. This is a bit off since if anyone was to be purging its stringers, you'd think it was BTV, who originated the report. If CCTV is purging anyone, it should be editors who picked up the story and reran it.

Also worth a look, and cited in a comment in my previous post on this matter is a Xinhua article carrying the reaction of the All China Journalists Federation to this episode. This article is interesting for a whole variety of assertions made about the Chinese media, and you should read it in its (brief) entirety. However, some highlights:

The All-China Journalists' Association (ACJA) on Thursday night released a statement criticizing journalists involved in the fabricated report, saying it "severely violated journalistic ethics and severely tarnished the image and social credibility of Chinese media".

It carried on to say the report had "severely ruined the reputation of the State" and made society "astonished and angry".

"The ACJA, on behalf of journalism professionals all over the country, strongly condemn the news fabrication and requires the media circle to take feasible and cogent measures to put an end to news fabrication," the statement said.

"Authenticity is the lifeblood of journalism and ensuring authenticity of news reports is the basic professional ethic of journalists and a social responsibility which journalists must bear," said the ACJA statement.

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"The existence of fabricated news is humiliating for the Chinese media circle. Fabricated news, which disturb normal production, social order and cause severe economic losses and baneful social effects, is not allowed by laws, regulations and journalistic ethics," said the statement

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"The public relies on the media to find out what is happening and make basic judgments on their lives accordingly. Once the foundation of the public's judgement is proved fake, the media's social credibility will be ruined," said Zhou Qing'an, professor of Qinghua University.

"The content of news is no different from historical fact," Zhou cited Cai Yuanpei, one of China's most influential scholars in the early 20th century, as saying, stressing the importance of the authenticity of news.

I would say that judging the content of the news no different from historical fact is a fraught proposition anywhere, and especially in China. This may have been a more applicable statement when the media really was the throat and tongue of the Party, and the Party's version of history really was historical fact as far as the majority of Chinese was concerned. However China's modern media doesn't quite earn that level of automatic trust. (And nor, for that matter, does the media anywhere. Media should always be critically evaluated.)

The ethical problems in Chinese media are, of course, absolutely real as anyone in my line of work knows. The question is whether the Chinese government will see more explicit government intervention and further restrictions on media as the answer, or whether a more constructive and open approach might be found.

Cynical though it might seem, my bet is on the latter. 

On this topic, Beijing Boyce raised an interesting point with me in an e-mail today. Everyone got swept up in whether baozi were being made with cardboard or not. Largely lost in all of that was that the sanitary conditions displayed in the video, fraudulent though it might have been, were not uncommon. A walk down the wet market street behind my apartment makes that abundantly clear.