【每日电讯报20121030】中国的人民日报抨击纽约时报

枣红马

China's People's Daily launches attack onThe New York Times

The mouthpiece newspaper of China'sCommunist Party has launched a blistering attack on The New York Times,accusing it of "faking" and "distorting" news and being agovernment "propaganda tool".

People's Daily turned its canons on the161-year-old newspaper on Monday, after The New York Times published theresults of an investigation into Mr Wen's family's finances Photo:Alexander F Yuan/AP

The 1,500 word People's Daily editorialappeared to be a direct response to The New York Times's explosive exposé lastweek about the $2.7 billion (£1.67 billion) "hidden fortune" of thefamily of Chinese prime minister Wen Jiabao.

But in a humiliating about-turn, withinhours of the People's Daily publishing its lengthy assault on the Americannewspaper's journalistic integrity it emerged that much of the Chinesenewspaper's critique had in fact been plagiarised from other sources.

The Beijing-based People's Daily turned itscanons on the 161-year-old newspaper on Monday, three days after The New YorkTimes published the highly embarrassing results of its one-year investigationinto Mr Wen's family's finances.

"For a long time, the New York Timeshas [had] one line printed on its masthead, 'All the news that's fit toprint'," noted the People's Daily opinion piece, under the headline: 'NewYork Times: scandals stack-up, prestige declines'.

"This century-old newspaper claims itsnews is authentic and reliable, yet there have been quite a few [cases of]plagiarism and fake news in recent years," added the combative piecepublished on the website of a newspaper which is controlled, funded andcensored by the Chinese government.

"It turns out the New York Times has ahistory of faking news," the People's Daily went on, pointing to thedamaging scandal surrounding reporter Jayson Blair, who resigned in 2003 afterbeing accused of "frequent acts of journalistic fraud".

Doug Young, a journalism professor atShanghai's Fudan University, said that while the People's Daily had notdirectly referred to The New York Times' allegations about Mr Wen's familywealth, the editorial was a "clear response" from the Communist Partyleadership.

"It is the official Party newspaper[and] they are speaking on behalf of the Party," he said. "Aneditorial like that is basically their rebuttal even though they aren't givingThe New York Times the pleasure of having their story mentioned."

The People's Daily story was an attempt to"discredit" the western media, added Young, the author of a book onthe Chinese media called 'The Party Line'.

But the People's Daily and otherstate-controlled media outlets have themselves struggled with plagiarism in thepast. In August, a reporter from its sister paper, the English-language GlobalTimes, was sacked after being caught fabricating or copying a number of reportson the London Olympics. Among the plagiarised stories was a supposedly"exclusive interview" with London mayor Boris Johnson, which had beencribbed from one of Mr Johnson's Daily Telegraph columns.

On Monday afternoon, meanwhile, it emergedthat large chunks of the People's Daily article on The New York Times had beenplagiarised from a variety of online sources. Several sections appeared to havebeen lifted word-for-word from China News Agency stories while other parts hadbeen copied from previous articles in the People's Daily itself.

Calls to the People's Daily HQ wentunanswered on Monday afternoon. Users of China's Twitter-like microblog Weibowere unimpressed.

"The domestic media is soentertaining," wrote one. "Plagiarism, faking, scandals stack-up –all because [The New York Times] reported the unspeakable secret."

青山水泊

Though a lie be well drest,it is ever overcome.

Sooner or later,the truth comes to light.