Foreign Media Rapped for Misreporting of Poison Case

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, September 24, 2002

Foreign Media Rapped for Misreporting of Poison Case

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Some of the overseas media are under fire for their inaccurate reporting of the Nanjing rat poison case. Exaggerated death toll figures and coverage of sensational rumours were a problem, writes Wen Wei Po.

With details of the September 14 tragedy having come to light, "facts prove that some overseas media engaged in spreading false information concerning the case ... with no respect paid for accuracy and truths", it said in a report today.

On the day in which the tragedy took place, some overseas media reported on their websites - with no supportive evidence - that "1,000 people were poisoned and some 100 had been killed".

That number was "several times more" than what had been preliminarily recorded by an emergency centre established immediately after the incident to help with the rescue work.

As the centre was still verifying with hospitals all over Nanjing the precise death toll and the identity of the increasing number of victims, it was impossible to get an accurate account of the final figures, the Wen Wei Po report said, quoting "authoritative sources" close to the case.

Thus Xinhua news agency only reported briefly that "a number of the victims have died".

Yet some overseas media paid no attention to the Xinhua report, and went further to claim that the death toll "has reached 243".

"They did not provide any evidence, and the report only served to create more panic among the relatives of victims," Wen Wei Po said.

After careful verifications with the hospitals concerned, the facts were finally made clear on September 17, with 38 killed in the incident, a number much smaller than the overseas reports.

Apart from inaccurate death figures, some overseas media also created a sensation by reporting that the hospitals dealt with the influx of poison patients by order of their social status. "The rich or those from wealthy families were treated first while the poor were neglected," some media reported, citing the example of Gao Lei, a student of Tangshan Middle School who was killed in the incident.

But such reports were refuted by Pang Chunchen, Gao's teacher, who sent Gao and another five affected students to the General Hospital of Nanjing Military Command.

The doctors there conducted immediate emergency treatment on all of them, said Pang. "There was absolutely no such issue as who was treated first," he said.

"We treated all victims equally," doctors were quoted as saying. "Under such a pressing situation, how could we tell who was rich or not?"

Gao's father, after learning of the rescue efforts on his daughter, also expressed thanks to the doctors.

The overseas report on his daughter "rubbed salts on the wounds" of the family, he said.

China Daily HK Edition contributes to this report

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