Posted on 08/15/2007 7:08:38 AM PDT by theothercheek
A Chinese court sentenced reporter Zi Beijia, 28, to a year in prison for faking a hidden camera television story about cardboard-filled pork buns, reports The Associated Press. According to testimony at Zi’s trial, he paid four migrant workers from Shaanxi province to make the buns according to his instructions, which included stuffing the dough with cardboard softened with caustic soda and a small amount of fatty pork, and then edited the footage at home. A freelance reporter for Beijing Television, Zi’s motive for faking the story was to advance his career.
Unfortunately, it is not unheard of for freelance writers to fake stories to advance their careers - for instance, Philip Chien (Wired News) and Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp (The New Republic), both of whom were extensively covered by bloggers and the MSM after the journalistic malfeasance came to light.
Then there’s the James Taranto-Heather Robinson affair, which has thus far escaped the notice of the media watchdogs in the blogosphere and the MSM. Regular readers of The Stiletto Blog know the details, but to recap: In the June 15th edition of Best of the Web Today Taranto hyped up the wazoo a New York Sun article written by uncredentialed freelancer Robinson, which included quotes attributed to Harvard professor Jessica Stern that were fabricated.
While Wired News, The New Republic and Beijing Television appear to have been duped by Chien, Beauchamp and Zi, respectively, for well over a year Taranto has actively aided Robinson’s ambitions to become An Important Pundit (the egregious conflict of interest notwithstanding) and abetted her journalistic fraud by not correcting the record on the disputed quotes – which, the professor says, prompted a slew of death threats against her.
Not for nothing the latest poll by the Pew Research Center finds that more than half of Americans believe news organizations are politically biased, inaccurate, and don't care about the people on whom they report.
Just as The Stiletto considers herself fortunate that she doesn’t live in Turkey, where she surely would have been imprisoned under Article 301 for this post or for this one - and especially for this one - Robinson and Taranto should consider themselves fortunate they don’t live in China.
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