Apple Daily the rumor mill
Updated: 2013-04-26 06:18
By Lai Chi-chum(HK Edition)
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The US-based International Business Times website ran a sensational story on Sunday that claims Taiwan's Red Cross society offered to send a rescue team to Ya'an in Sichuan province after a powerful earthquake devastated the area, but its mainland counterpart demanded a 5 million yuan ($810,000) donation to allow the mission to enter the disaster area. To no one's surprise the fairy tale was picked by Apple Daily, which played it up as best it could the same way it celebrated the Wenchuan earthquake of May 12, 2008 as a "punishment by God".
The social watchdog of the Red Cross Society of China released an official statement at 8 pm the same day after a fact-check that found the IBTimes.com story a "pure fabrication". Taiwan's Red Cross society also issued a statement denying the rumor and accusing IBTimes.com of putting words in its mouth to mislead readers.
The next day (Monday) all forms of news media on the mainland as well as in Taiwan and Hong Kong reported the incident, with the denial by the Red Cross organizations in Taiwan and the mainland no less, but Apple Daily continued to spread the vicious rumor knowing there was not a shred of truth in it. The opposition mouthpiece repeated the lie in two separate stories on pages A19 and A25 without mentioning the formal debunking by the Red Cross in Taiwan and its mainland counterpart.
By deliberately spreading the rumor Apple Daily has completely thrown away journalistic ethics and integrity in a bid to block humanitarian donations by the SAR government and Hong Kong residents for the quake-stricken compatriots in Sichuan. It once again showed the public its coldblooded true self and that it will do anything for political profit, by desecrating the honest role of news media and rudimentary human decency if necessary.
Apple Daily's political attacks on the mainland on this occasion did not stop there. On April 23 its front page top story claims that Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying ignored the fact that some portions of the donation the Hong Kong SAR offered Wenchuan earthquake victims in 2008 were misused and "followed suit" in offering to donate HK$100 million this time "blindly" to the Sichuan provincial government. It went on to describe the SAR government's offer as nothing but "ingratiating itself with the central authorities". This is an apparent attempt to politicize relief efforts and sow discord between Hong Kong residents and their mainland compatriots.
The truth is, according to an agreement between the Hong Kong SAR and Sichuan provincial governments on cooperation in rebuilding the disaster areas after the Wenchuan earthquake of 2008, the Sichuan side would carry out the construction and daily management of projects directly funded with Hong Kong donations, while the SAR government can send professional representatives to Sichuan to inspect the progress of the rebuilding projects it funds with donations. Every one of those designated projects is registered separately and every phase of construction was recorded in a log containing the nature, content, scope, budget and intended beneficiary. The Hong Kong side would allocate money from its relief fund to each designated project phase by phase precisely as each log indicates. Apple Daily has provided no evidence whatsoever to support its accusation that Hong Kong's donations for Wenchuan resulted in shoddy structures or ended up in corrupt officials' pockets.
The opposition mouthpiece has bared its utter hatred for the Chinese nation as well as mainland people in a series of editorials since the Ya'an earthquake struck, using such excuses as "never letting donations fall into corrupt officials hands again;" "Hongkongers refuse to donate this time;" "paying for (Apple Daily) reporters' expenses is better than donation" and "disaster relief equals saving the Communist Party." These venomous words once again demonstrate the bigoted editorial mind of the paper and how committed it is to demonizing the Chinese nation and its government, and cursing the victims of natural disasters if it feels like it.
Back when a massive earthquake devastated Wenchuan and surrounding areas on May 12, 2008, Apple Daily published an editorial the following day describing the deadly natural disaster and a host of other calamities as well as human wrongdoings, such as inflation, stock market falls and railway accidents, as "punishment by God" and swore the Chinese nation "had it coming to no one's but its own fault." That article was deservedly condemned by members of society, with many infuriated Hong Kong citizens throwing curses right back at the author of the hateful editorial.
The author is a current affairs commentator. This is an excerpted translation of his column published in Wen Wei Po on April 24.
(HK Edition 04/26/2013 page1)