Last week’s Beijing TV story about steamed buns (baozi) made with cardboard instead of pork was picked up by TV stations around the world, but on Wednesday, Beijing TV issued a retraction and apology — the report had apparently been staged.
The police have arrested the journalist, and Chinese and foreign newspapers and TV stations have dutifully run stories about the report being faked (e.g. in the The China Daily, Associated Press)
ESWN has translated a Southern Metropolis Daily story that gives some background about the journalist and some of the people who figured out that it was a fake story.
What is not being reported in the press is that many people in Beijing believe that the news about the cardboard buns story being fake is itself fake (e.g. see these posts by Chinese journalists Ping Ke and Milk Pig). The way the authorities have gone about stopping the story is exactly the same way they clamp down on real news stories that they don’t want circulating.
Another journalist who blogs at Pro State in Flames has written a post in which he sympathizes with Beijing TV’s failure to discover the fraudulent reporting. The journalist had previously reported on food products with quality problems, and as everyone knows, there are plenty of such products in China, so the story is very believable.
This is one of the paradoxes of the government’s tight control on news in China: against the never-ending background hum of happy and harmonious news, fake reports can tell as much truth as factual information.
UPDATE: On ESWN, Roland Soong looks at reasons why many people still think the cardboard steamed bun story is not a fake, and presents a comprehensive collection of photos and links about the affair: Why Do People Think That A Fake News Story Is Real?
On China Media Project, David Bandurski has translated an opinion piece from the Southern Metropolis Daily: Cardboard buns and China’s crisis of public trust.