Wang Fanghui, a Chinese citizen living in Paris, was one of the first witnesses to the Charlie Hebdo massacre that took place on January 7 - gunmen briefly entered his office on their way to the Hebdo offices, fired one shot, and moved on. Wang escaped from the situation unharmed, and was later interviewed by CCTV about the event - an interview he says incorrectly portrayed him as a total wuss.
According to a Caixin exclusive, a CCTV anchor "made him seem to be scared to speak publicly until the gunmen were dead," despite the fact that he had already spoken to several French journalists. Wang says this made him "appear to be a coward," and that "these distortions hurt his reputation," especially after the CCTV footage was picked up by stations throughout China and the Chinese-speaking world.
Caixin has published Wang's response to the wimp allegations levied against him by CCTV. In his version of the story, CCTV:
- Arrives late to the scene by 2 days
- Asks him if he was scared to give an interview
- Ignores his response ("I said that I had already taken an interview with France's leading TV station")
- Describes Wang as "a [man] who refused to take media interviews after the homocides"
That's some stellar reporting, CCTV. The reporter described her talk with Wang as an "exclusive interview" (which it wasn't) and appears to have fudged Wang's statements about speaking with other media to support that.
Wang's statement (read in full on Caixin) says that "everything turned out wrong in the CCTV program," and his reputation has been ruined.
Obviously, some shoddy reporting by CCTV is far and away one of the least important things that happened in France that day, but Wang's story has captivated Chinese internet users. Caixin's report on the story has garnered more comments than anything else they've ever published, and loving defenses of CCTV are few and far between.
As Caixin says, "Accuracy is the first rule of journalism, and articles about terror attacks are no exception." State media, be warned! (Although, let's be real, if they had lied and said that Wang was a hero of staggering bravery, we'd likely not be having this discussion.)
0 User Comments