February 1, 2000	atimes.com

China THE MIDDLE KINGDOM: Hong Kong 'rumor-mongering' By Bradley Martin Hong Kong-based reporters have been all over the story about a massive smuggling operation allegedly centered in Fujian Province's port of Xiamen. The Chinese authorities say things went too far when local and foreign media organizations linked the case to the wife of a rising star in Beijing's party apparatus - and the allegation promptly spread all over China via the Internet. The Beijing authorities had been imposing a news blackout on the case involving Xiamen-based trader Lai Changxing, whose organization is suspected of having smuggled as much as $10 billion worth of diesel fuel, automobiles, cigarettes, guns and rubber into the mainland. But officials lifted the blackout last week for long enough to deny reports that politburo member and Beijing Municipal Party Secretary Jia Qingling had divorced his wife because of her involvement in the scandal. A ''relevant source'' in Beijing fed Hong Kong's Wen Wei Po and other news organizations the official version, which described the story involving Jia's wife, Lin Youfang, as merely a ''sensational rumor'' peddled by ''irresponsible'' newspapers and magazines. Jia is an honest and upright official and Lin remains his devoted and helpful wife, said the ''source'', and the Wen Wei Po reporter dutifully wrote it all down and printed it. Agence France Presse seems to have gotten an earful from the same source but managed to get permission to put a name on him or her: someone named Zhang in the Party Propaganda Bureau in Beijing. Perhaps the most interesting article carrying the official refutation was the January 27 Ma Ling column in the mainland-owned Hong Kong daily Ta Kung Pao. The columnist did not simply regurgitate the party line but thoughtfully critiqued the rumor-mongering culture of Hong Kong. And Ma Ling has a point - up to a point. ''As far as I know, the rumor about Jia Qinglin's divorce was started in Hong Kong and then other overseas media rushed to copy the rumor indiscriminately and spread it like a swarm of bees,'' says Ma Ling. Looking back on seven years as a Ta Kung Pao correspondent in Beijing, the columnist says a big part of the job was refuting such rumors - which ''more often than not'' came from Hong Kong. ''The impression left by Hong Kong reporters on the people in the inland is that they are famed for dedication to their career, daring to stand up to any autorities, ask questions and write. But at the same time they are also famed for negligence of professional ethics, recklessly concocting stories.'' Reporters in some other countries who send false reports lose their jobs or at least are penalized somehow. ''However,'' says Ma Ling, ''the Hong Kong media do not seem to care and the readers seem to be particularly tolerant of them,'' taking the attitude that there's no harm in sham news if it's exciting. Ma Ling recalls that during the Tienanmen Square incident some Japanese news organizations reported that Deng Xiaoping was dead and Li Peng injured. When the two turned up in perfectly good health, Japanese readers were outraged at having been fed false information and demanded punishment of the journalists concerned. But the Japanese reporters had an excuse: they had relayed the report from Hong Kong. ''Hence they washed their hands of the incident.'' So what are reporters supposed to do for information in a news blackout such as was imposed in the smuggling case? Simple, says Ma Ling. Check around, get the story confirmed before running with it. The point is that Hong Kong-based reporters should be responsible and accurate. Leaving aside for the moment the question of whether we've heard the last word on Caesar's - er, Jia's - wife, this advice is excellent. Up to a point. And that point comes at the end of the column. ''Naturally we have to use laws as weapons to confront those who do not have the least personal integrity of professionalism,'' says Ma Ling. ''Have Singaporean leaders not done perfectly well in this regard?'' Uh-oh. (Special to Asia Times Online)

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