The mystery of the China Digital Newspaper Lab

NCOH seal vs. CDNL logo.

China’s National Committee for Oral Health was established in 1988 by the Ministry of Health to promote oral hygiene and disease prevention. The Ministry abolished it last week following extended controversy over the Committee’s legal standing and true function – it apparently had no authority to endorse products, and may have been merely a few part-time employees who accepted payment in return for allowing the use of the Committee insignia.

Commentators have been buzzing the last few days about similar endorsement rackets waiting to be discovered – an “endorsement economy” that brings little value to anyone but the government-approved organizations.

The following op-ed wonders about the legality of a newly-launched GAPP project – the China Digital Newspaper Laboratory.

The National Committee for Oral Health is gone. No matter what the notice from the Ministry of Health says about it, the NCOH is gone, and toothpaste advertisements will no longer bear the great NCOH seal of endorsement. Good, let’s send it off with fireworks.

Then I saw a great piece by Wang Runlong with the bold title, “How many more NCOHs are there to disband?” and I had a sudden shock. What? There’s another NCOH? Reading it carefully, it was actually talking in general terms about monstrous, “non-governmental, non-private entities that have not a single full-time employee and have no qualifications to issue endorsements,” which, “owing to protection and shielding by ‘authoritative departments’,” “are able to issue endorsements like the NCOH.” Using this as a basis for comparison, then we could say that the NCOH is indeed still around. And not only that – recently, a new one ventured out.

Recently, at the instigation of the Newspaper and Magazine Publishing Department at GAPP, the Media Information Institute organized and promoted the China Digital Newspaper Lab. After the lab was established, it was all about meetings, setting up a board of directors, developing the member work units, collecting membership fees, running forums, evaluating, inspecting, and deciding on projects, setting up consulting groups, getting account holders to issue receipts….isn’t all of this work fun? However, there’s always “progress.” Compared to the NCOH, this lab had two areas of “progress”: first, it had no seal. Didn’t the NCOH have that nationally-famous seal? It’s success lay entirely in that seal, and its failure lay in that seal as well. Ultimately, that seal was seized and it could not escape being tied in. This is better – the CDNL was founded without a seal, so no handhold can be found. Clever!

Second, there’s no trace of where it came from. Although NCOH did not have a single full-time employee, it at least was a formal oral hygiene organization approved and established in 1988 by the Ministry of Health. The CDNL held conferences large and small, there were newspaper reports, and the signs of member work units have been put up, but if you ask GAPP, they’ll clearly inform you that they did not approve or establish this entity; nor has the Ministry of Civil Affairs ever registered this kind of communal organization. If you say that this organization doesn’t exist, well, it has normal activities, normal reports, and a web site. Say it does exist, well, it has no approval, no registration, and to collect fees it has to find someone else to issue a receipt. Should this lab later cease all activity, there is no need for GAPP to issue a notice. Brilliant, truly brilliant!

However, if you say that the National Committee for Oral Health is an illegal expert consultation organization set up by the Ministry of Culture, one that does not have the power to offer product inspection and quality endorsements, then the China Digital Newspaper Lab is even worse than the NCOH. To date it has not been approved by GAPP and has not registered with the Ministry of Civil Affairs – what qualifications does this beast have to set up a board of directors, to develop member work units, and to evaluate projects? A stupid, illegal organization like this – screw it – no need for upright work units and organizations to pay it any mind; if you’re not afraid of stirring things up, you could even sue. The National Committee for Oral Health is gone – what’s there left to fear?