Roland Soong of ESWN translates a China Youth Daily article on the hushed treatment of the Zijin acid spill incident:
Many reporters who went to Shanghang county (Fujian province) to cover the Zijin mine pollution case told China Youth Daily today that they came across the public relations activities by Zijin Mining.
The Fujian bureau chief of a financial magazine claimed that they received a sum of 60,000 yuan wired from Zijin Mining on July 7 or 8. He called the Zijin Mining publicity department to inquire and was told: “This is what we are giving to the folks at your bureau. We were not asked to do anything except to issue a receipt.” This bureau chief said that since it was the weekend, they had to wait until Monday (July 12) to return the money. “We returned every single cent back to Zijin Mining.
And so it was on July 12 that Xinhua published the exclusive report on the pollution by Zijin Mining nine days ago.
According to this bureau chief, their reporter happened to be working in Longyan city not long after the spill incident and he rushed over to the scene of the incident. “But our magazine has a longer period between publication, so Xinhua broke the news first.”
Read also Zijin Mining And The Chinese PR Strategy: Pay Up at The China Tracker.
