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Comments by YACCS

 

Doris Kearns Goodwin is Chinese?

The Beijing Evening News reported that Congress is threatening to move from Washington if they don't get a brand new Capitol building. Unfortunately, they copied the story from The Onion, which isn't known for its fact-checking. Or fact-reporting. Fortunately, despite the lack of a tradition of a free press, the Chinese have learned the American approach to media criticism, which is simply to deny that there's a problem:

Yu Bin, the editor in charge of international news, acknowledged Thursday that he had no idea where the writer, Huang Ke, originally got the story. Yu said he would tell Huang to "be more careful next time."

But he adamantly ruled out a correction and grew slightly obstreperous when pressed to comment on the article's total lack of truth.

"How do you know whether or not we checked the source before we published the story?" Yu demanded in a phone interview. "How can you prove it's not correct? Is it incorrect just because you say it is?"

The New York Times responded by making Yu a full-time columnist for the paper, saying, "Hey, it works for Kristoff and Krugman."
posted by David Nieporent at 6/07/2002 05:53:00 AM |