Christie Blatchford reports in the Globe and Mail:
What is of real interest in the reporting of this story is, unusually, the reporting.
Credit is due bloggers here in China, and ex-pat professor Xiao Qiang (now at the School of Journalism in Berkeley, Calif.) and his China Digital Times Internet research group for leading the way on some of the major fraud-and-fakery stories of these Olympics.
It is the Chinese who allegedly have been cheating and falsifying the ages of at least three of their girl gymnasts, most recently the sprite He Kexin, around whom the latest controversy rages.
What is really creepy about what’s emerged from the reporting of the gymnastics controversy is how state-owned agencies have rewritten themselves online to “correct” the record – in other words, rewritten history and attempted to expunge any contrary evidence.
… So, in the end, it’s not the Chinese gymnasts or how old they are that counts; it’s the Chinese censors propagandists and professional liars, and what they’re doing, that tells the tale.
