A China Central Television reporter was arrested for allegedly accepting a bribe from the relative of a man she wrote an article about (the businessman, according to her article, had been unfairly prosecuted by a local official). Her story took a turn for the absurd when her lawyer argued the man who gave her the 200,000-RMB (about $36,000 CDN) car is actually her boyfriend--his brother just happens to be the businessman in question.
"The corruption charge is nothing but revenge," the woman's lawyer was quoted as saying in a China Daily article. He added that, "As the brother is courting Li, it is normal for her to accept the present."
Um, ok. Well case closed, then. Move along; no guanxi-related conflict of interest, here.
I'm not sure what pisses me off more: The blow this deals to the already abysmal credibility journalists have in this country, or the fact that prosecuting officials " gained entry to [the journalist's] flat by claiming to check for a floor leak."
Dammit. Makes you miss the usual perfunctory corruption witch-hunts going on hereabouts.
(One issue a politics professor inscrutably interviewed touches on is whether China needs specific laws relating to journalists and the press. I have no idea what those would look like in a place where reporting anything that could "embarrass" China or the government is still a big no-no, but it would be fascinating to find out.)
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