Seeing and believing in China(卫报承认失实报道原文)

来源:百度文库 编辑:神马文学网 时间:2024/03/29 15:14:22
Seeing and believing in China
The readers‘ editor on mistakes made by a reporter under pressure
Ian Mayes
Monday October 17, 2005
The Guardian
On Thursday last week the Guardian carried the following note in its daily corrections column: "In a report headed ‘They beat him until he was lifeless‘: How democracy activist in China‘s new frontline was left for dead after a brutal attack by a uniformed mob (front page, October 10) we said that Lu Banglie [a pro-democracy activist] was so injured in the beating that ‘his eye [lay] out of its socket‘ and ‘the ligaments in his neck were broken‘. Subsequent reports have made it clear that Mr Lu‘s injuries were not as serious as had been stated. In particular, a report headed Chinese activist vows to continue, despite beating, page 3, October 12, stated, after an interview with Mr Lu: ‘Although he was in pain from his neck, it was not broken and his eye did not come out of its socket.‘" I added a note saying, in effect, that the huge disparity between these reports would be the subject of this column today.
The initial report containing what were quickly exposed as gross errors and exaggerations was written by the Guardian‘s newly appointed Shanghai correspondent, Benjamin Joffe-Walt. Mr Joffe-Walt is 25. His main experience as a journalist has been gained in six months working for a South Africa newspaper, This Day, until it ceased publication in November 2004, and an overlapping period as a stringer, a freelance correspondent, for a British newspaper, the Sunday Telegraph. For the latter he filed stories from all over Africa, including Darfur. He has won several awards: young journalist of the year from the Foreign Press Association in London, in November last year, and the CNN African print journalist of the year award in June this year. He has been runner-up in two other awards. He started work for the Guardian on September 1.
Five weeks into his contract, while deputising for the Guardian‘s China correspondent, Jonathan Watts, he went to Taishi in southern China, which was described in his report as "the hotspot of the growing rural uprisings". With him were a local driver, an interpreter who had travelled with him from Shanghai, and Lu Banglie. Mr Lu, who had undertaken to put them on the right road, insisted, according to Joffe-Walt, on going all the way to Taishi, despite being asked three times to leave the car. Joffe-Walt‘s report,available on the Guardian website, tells vividly what happened there. Mr Lu was pulled out of the car and severely beaten. The driver, the interpreter and Joffe-Walt locked themselves in the car for safety. Joffe-Walt was punched through the window. They were detained and questioned, and left convinced that Mr Lu was dead.
In Shanghai again 24 hours later Joffe-Walt filed his first-person eye-witness account. Indeed, working against a tight deadline on Sunday for Monday‘s edition, he filed 3,500 words in a graphic stream-of-consciousness narrative in which, in the greatly cut-down version that was published, he said: "My head was spinning. I was in a mixed state of shock at what had happened to Mr Lu and utter fear for my life."
He filed only an hour before deadline, which left little time for interaction with the desk. He was not specifically questioned by the desk in London about some of the details in his description. He was not asked how far he was from Mr Lu when the latter was being beaten. He was not asked how clearly he could see the things he was reporting he had seen. At the same time Joffe-Walt failed to communicate to the desk the condition he was in then and was still in at the time of writing. He was still convinced at that time that Mr Lu was dead. I shall come back to that.
When it became clear that Mr Lu was alive and his injuries were not consistent with what had been described, relief among readers over his survival was mixed with serious concern about the grave flaws thus revealed in the report. The Guardian recalled Joffe-Walt to London, via Hong Kong where he was interviewed by the Guardian‘s diplomatic editor, Ewen MacAskill, who had been sent there for the purpose. MacAskill and Watts, who had been recalled from leave, have spoken to all the people who were with Joffe-Walt in Taishi, including Mr Lu. The Guardian arranged for Mr Lu to have a medical examination and scan. They revealed no serious injuries.
All witnesses agree that Mr Lu was severely beaten, and Mr Lu has confirmed that that was the case. In London, Joffe-Walt has been seen by a succession of Guardian editors. I think it is true to say that they have all developed some sympathy for Joffe-Walt, despite the fact that his report had threatened the credibility and integrity of the Guardian‘s reporting in China.
I have interviewed Joffe-Walt, mainly in two sessions, for a total of more than three hours and I am sure that it is right to stop short of the wholesale condemnation of him that the matter may appear to invite. Joffe-Walt having expressed repeated apologies for what he had done and its implications for the Guardian, and indeed for the pro-democracy movement in China, said: "This was a situation in which I honestly, for the first time in my life, thought I would die."
As a result of what he told me I urged him to contact Mark Brayne of the Dart Centre (see below), a former BBC correspondent, now a psychotherapist specialising in journalism and trauma (Joffe-Walt had already been examined at a clinic at the suggestion of the Guardian). Exceptionally, I had Joffe-Walt‘s permission to talk to Mark Brayne, with the latter‘s agreement, after their interview. Mr Brayne has no doubt that the situation, the mixture of fear and shame with which Joffe-Walt witnessed Mr Lu being beaten while he himself was locked in the car, contributed to a state of traumatic distress which he was still experiencing when he wrote his account. Mr Brayne said, "The intensity was quite unusual but in Benjamin‘s particular context it does make sense." In this state, he said, Joffe-Walt had lost touch with reality.
The Guardian clearly has to protect its reputation. It also recognises a duty of care to Mr Joffe-Walt. The two things are not incompatible.