“Those responsible have been dealt with accordingly”

City Morning Post (Jining), March 31, 2010

The bodies of twenty-one infants were discovered dumped in the Guangfu River in Jining, Shandong Province, on Monday.

The City Morning Post, a commercial affiliate of the Jining Daily, approached the story from an administrative angle: “Our city is working to properly handle the case of the infant bodies found in the Guangfu River” reads the headline in the front page sidebar.

The story on page 2 runs under a generic headline that could apply to any number of situations: “Those responsible have been dealt with accordingly” (相关责任人已受到相应处理). The article concludes with another bland paragraph: “At a press conference, the person in charge answered concerned questions from journalists. Reporters from thirty-odd media outlets at all levels attended the press conference.”

One must look outside of Jining for what those reporters in attendance wrote about the situation. The Jinan-based Luzhong Morning Post and Qilu Evening News have run articles that have been picked up by influential papers like the Southern Metropolis Daily, and English-language media like the China Daily and Global Times have also run their own in-depth reports.