CDT yesterday followed some first-time online reactions from netizens to the news that the cardboard-filled dumplings story is fabricated. What about China’s mainstream media? Are there voices other than Xinhua’s official version of this story now? Here are excerpts from an editorial on the Southern Metropolis Daily, translated by CDT:
…… if we look into the story of the cardboard-filled dumplings and its context, there is the food safety problem, which has been getting more and more severe without much sign of improvement; there is the credibility crisis of journalists and the media; and there is also the problem of how the news media is being managed by the government.
Wasted cardboard turned into filling for dumplings, and just in the blink of an eye these fake dumplings turned into fake news stories. The program producer ended up being detained because of the fabricated news, but small food vendors, news media and government agencies are all implicated in this scandal. A lack of trust is everywhere in our society, and this makes it particularly difficult to round up this event. The public may not believe those food vendors, nor the news media, nor the local government who is handling this event. [Full Chinese Text]
But the government agencies who are “handling” this event now seems more than just the Beijing city government. Here is a Chinese Internet user’s experience on QQ website, which is one of the most popular online communities in Chinese cyberspace, from boxun.com:
In the commentary section under the news of “Fabricated Cardboard-Filled Dumplings Story,” so many netizens, including myself, wrote posts. But from 8 pm to midnight, only one post was published on the commentary page. These were posts written by Chinese citizens; did someone put them into “fabricated dumplings”?!
Usually, with big news like this on the QQ website, there at least will be thousands of posts in the commentary section. Ever since the Party took charge of the “cardboard-filled dumplings story”, domestic websites have started to censor netizens’ voices as well.
See also: Six More Disciplined in Cardboard Baozi Scandal from Keralanext.com
