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Check this out please

By Alexis Hooi (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-05-25 07:45

Individuals caught lighting up in Beijing's smoke-free zones will be fined 200 yuan each, up 20 times from a previous penalty.

Top school Peking University is offering winners of a quiz show on State broadcaster China Central Television exam-free entry into its graduate programs.

Interesting? That is what I thought as well, when I first came across these pieces carried by various Chinese media online in the past week.

Unfortunately, they turned out to be grossly untrue.

These were just two examples of the many dubious stories we find on Chinese news sites every day.

Working with my colleagues at the front end of the newsroom, we are hit first thing in the morning by a constant barrage of Chinese news on the Internet covering all corners of this country.

Reporters then proceed to spend a large part of the rest of the day verifying the stories deemed most interesting for readers, including calls to newsmakers and sources nationwide to develop decent pieces for print.

This is how it has always been in the business, to substantiate every bit of information, over and over, to come up with "the first draft of history" for readers.

"If your mother says she loves you, check it out," reminds the other cliche.

Still, with the Internet increasingly reaching into all aspects of life and the citizen blog muscling its way into the fourth estate, the going is getting tougher.

While the Internet has supercharged the speed of gathering and presenting information, I shudder to think of how much of that information is true and what it is doing to a young generation growing up in the most populous country hungrily pursuing development.

The authorities seem to be onto it as well. News organizations were urged last month to put in place accountability systems, with heads of newspapers found carrying false reports expected to apologize to the public or even resign, and journalists themselves being held accountable for any erroneous story.

Similarly, officials have been told to punish such violators with warnings, fines or suspension of businesses.

The regulators certainly have their work cut out. At least 1.4 new blogs are being opened worldwide every second alone, the Shanghai-based Journalist Monthly magazine reported. Of the blogs, 17 new articles are being generated a second to add to the more than 1.35 billion "reports" across the globe.

For the past few years, various Chinese publications have even found it necessary to list the top fake news to make the country's headlines, with last year's entries showing a significant rise in false reports glimpsed from the Internet. These include:

- A Beijing real estate developer proposing that the capital's Forbidden City be razed to clear land for buildings that can house 1.2 million people.

- The word for the Shanghai dialect, "dia", having made its way into the Oxford Dictionary.

- Chinese diver Guo Jingjing found being pregnant three months ahead of the Beijing Olympics, when she is expected to make a sweep of the medals.

- South Korean media reporting that Sun Yat-sen, the father of modern China, was of Korean ancestry.

Yes, it is a terrifying trend. But expect a more harrowing list for this year, because the number of fake news items we are checking out and junking in the newsroom is growing by the day.

E-mail: alexishooi@chinadaily.com.cn