By XI MEI
Western Media Correspondent

The sight that greeted NYT staff Thursday

SHANGHAI (China Daily Show) – It was a day of mourning at the China offices of the New York Times today, after its ace reporter Chase Ketterman was discovered buried alive beneath a gigantic mound of paperwork.

The paper’s redoubtable 47-year-old Pulitzer Prize-winning Shanghai bureau chief had reportedly been spending long hours at night, tracking down information pertaining to possible tax loopholes enjoyed by the family members of Premier Li Keqiang.

However, it seems Ketterman’s obsessional pursuit of documentary evidence proving possible financial chicanery by Chinese leaders had grown out of control, even by Times standards.

The fatal stack of papers is said to have included tax records, spooling faxes, share certificates, old news clippings, public documents, probate letters, bus tickets, business cards, taxi receipts, restaurant fapiao, jotted notes on paper napkins, random doodles, school textbooks, a hardback edition of The Complete Speeches of Zhu Rongji (Volume 6: 1982-87), several copies of the last will and testament of Jiang Zemin, and a stack of empty pizza boxes.

There is no question of any fiscal impropriety involving Premier Li, the Times admitted.

“We didn’t want to give false hope to the family by saying that he was found buried alive,” Sanlitun police chief Zhao Bing later explained at a press conference. “But technically, Ketterman was buried alive,’ inasmuch as he was dead when we later found him.”

A crusader for the truth, NYT assistant Mai Huang has some important news she must tell Ketterman’s wife

Forensic tests suggest that Ketterman’s dogged pursuit of the mile-long paper trail became a one-way ticket to tragedy at around 11pm Monday, when the veteran journalist reached for a folder of redacted tax returns from underneath a squashed carton of stale baozi, and triggered an avalanche of accounting.

“When I came into the office, Chase was up to his eyeballs in incriminating clerical documents and had asphyxiated on half a steamed bun,” sobbed impressionable 22-year-old news assistant Mai Huang (pictured, left) who found the body.

“Do you think I should tell his wife about us now?”

His family has announced that they intend to respect Ketterman’s wishes by not disturbing his papery grave.

“At the moment, we’re simply going to leave him there, as per his will’s precise instructions in case of emergency,” a family spokesman said. “It’s how he would’ve wanted to go.”

Meanwhile, the Smithsonian Institute in the US has already expressed an interest in purchasing the mausoleum.

The museum issued a statement saying that the Shanghai-based tomb was a “historical landmark of journalism,” remarking that, “there can be no greater legacy for any Times reporter… than to have his final resting place marked by a vast heap of dry reading material.”

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The Smithsonian has eagerly released plans for the proposed Ketterman mausoleum

By XI MEITI
Western Media Correspondent

Morris says this is his worst case of corporate espionage in nearly eight years of reporting on missing pets

BATON ROUGE (China Daily Show) – Twice-weekly local organ of record the Picayune Sun-Tribune Weekly has become the latest victim of infiltration by state-sponsored Chinese hackers, the newspaper claimed yesterday.

The news follows revelations that reporters working for at least three major Western media groups – the New York Times, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal – have suffered several overseas security breaches, believed to originate in China.

“We first noticed web hits began declining steadily in about 2011,” vice-editor Wilbur Morris wrote in a prepared statement.

“We now believe this is directly related to a middling review of the Lucky Golden Dragon restaurant by Food and School Fete Editor Martha Jones, published in a September 2010 edition of the Picayune.”

Jones reportedly spent several hours undercover at the Louisiana-based takeaway, sampling the prawn crackers and frozen spring rolls, before penning the inflammatory 236-word hit-piece, which accused the Cantonese eatery of serving “a chow mein that left this reviewer wondering what happened to the soy sauce!”

Jones: no intention of compromising an upcoming analysis of Jan’s Korean Bakery

Jones, 58, also questioned the lack of MSG in the Lucky Golden Dragon’s eight-dollar ‘Beef in Oytser sauce [sic],’ writing that “it could do with a little more” and even suggesting they offer customers a choice of dips in future.

Editor Morris says that since the review’s publication, several rambling emails he has sent to staffers have gone unanswered, while an old link to a syndicated article about clam chowder now simply returns a 404 error.

“I knew something was up… then I recently read about what happened to the New Yorker?” Morris told China Daily Show over a long lunch– referring to claims that several reporters’ email accounts had come under cyber-attack since penning investigative pieces about top Chinese leaders, including incoming President Xi Jinping and outgoing Premier Wen Jiabao.

“I contacted the FBI, but they told me they were busy solving crimes,” Morris revealed as the pudding course arrived. “Now that in itself tells you there’s something fishy going on.”

Have you been hacked lately? Contact cds@chinadailyshow.com – or follow the story with @chinadailyshow on Twitter

By  WEIRU JIAOLU
Western Media Correspondent

A NYT sub painstakingly ensures that a caption about a Satanic paedophile priest contains no typos

NEW YORK (China Daily Show) – Vowing not to rest until every last one of his readers is thoroughly bored, New York Times chief sub-editor Willard J. Hunsucker III promised that his newspaper’s next blockbuster story about China will be accompanied by a headline that is appropriately off-putting and “even duller than the previous one.”

Hunsucker III said he had personally affixed the becalming title ‘Insurer’s Regulatory Win Benefits a Chinese Leader’s Family’ to an explosive and deeply researched follow-up to the Times’s exclusive about Premier Wen Jiabao’s $2.4 billion family fortune.

The new story, posted Friday, alleges that Wen personally intervened to prevent the break-up of an Chinese insurance conglomerate, a move that saw Wen’s immediate family go on to reap millions.

Thanks to Hunsucker III’s headline, only five people read the article – all of them in China.

“If you want to read our brilliant exposes, you’re going to have to fight for it,” explained Hunsucker III. “At the Times, we don’t believe in vulgar, snappy ‘headlines’ or tawdry ‘pull quotes.’ We think that if a story is devastating or unique, it should be released into the cybersphere like a blind puppy – to fend for itself.”

Some reporters disagree with the policy, however.

The Times lead China writer Ravi Mahmoud described the moment a desk editor affixed the headline ‘In China, Potential Disciplinary Infraction Caught on Digital Image’ to a story about a Chinese official taped sodomizing a male prostitute as “yet another blow to my increasingly fragile self-esteem.”

Mahmoud recalled, “I let out a deep breath… and opened another bottle of Grant’s.”

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By MEI DEBAO
Party Congress Correspondent

Journalists discuss lunch options at the Party Congress

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – Pity poor ABC TV reporter Megan Sykes: the 27-year-old broadcaster arrived from New York last Thursday with a crew of three, ostensibly to cover China’s National Party Congress. Now she and her team spend their days wandering the streets of Beijing, looking for something to write about.

“There’s an AIDS village about 30 miles outside Beijing,” suggests cameraman Peter, as the crew awkwardly relax in a cramped Dashilar coffee shop. “We could do that.”

“We didn’t travel 2,000 miles to cover another AIDS village,” Sykes angrily snaps in reply. “Look, sorry, Peter… I’m just tired. And frankly bored of this.”

She’s not alone.

As one of the biggest political events of the decade slides into its second week, many correspondents who’ve flown in especially for the event are waking up to the realization that there’s absolutely nothing to report.

“This is a complete bloody disaster, mate,” says veteran Australian journalist Bill Higgins. “My editor is calling me up every bloody day, asking how we can justify the expense of sending two reporters to China for ten days. I offered him a story about a provincial initiative to promote new dance routines for ethnic minorities in Sichuan. He told me to get off the bloody phone.”

Police report that across Beijing, hundreds of dispirited, disheveled and dejected reporters, from countries such as Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan and the US, are milling around the capital’s hutong and boulevards, many without a source or even a place to go and meet somebody for coffee.

“These journalists pose a potential problem to stability. If they aimlessly drift through the city, desperately asking questions, looking for stories, who knows what they might find?” asked worried Chaoyang police chief Lin Liu. “We’ve asked the Ministry of Fisheries to hold an emergency press conference – just to get them safely off the streets for the night, and provide them with at least one hot lead.”

Not every journalist is experiencing the same difficulties, however.

Tongaat Masebo, of the state-run Radio Free Zimbabwe, says he simply does not understand what all the fuss is about. “We have run many fine stories this week, and my editors are very happy,” Masebo beams. “If anything, the problem is that I have too much material. I think that many of these so-called Western media are not proper journalists.”

Masebo is not alone in this view.

“The Party Congress is a most rich goldmine of stories,” agrees Majid Gholem-Hussain, deputy editor of the Tehran Democratic Post. Gholem-Hussain has spent the last week providing his paymasters with a series of stunning scoops from his luxurious Wangfujing hotel room.

“We are being hand-fed the choicest morsels of fascinating news by our good friends,” Gholem-Hussain gloated. “Our exclusive coverage is making utter humiliation for those fools at the New York Times and Washington Post. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk,” he added thoughtfully.

Follow whatever Party Congress news there is with @chinadailyshow on Twitter

By XI MEITEI
Western Media Correspondent

Whitman, pictured waiting for a rumor to break on Twitter

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – The chief correspondent for a top US newspaper has admitted that he has pretty much no idea what is currently going on in China.

“Nope – I’ve got nothing, to be honest with you. Not a goddamn clue,” said 44-year-old Peter Whitman, a veteran of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars who was previously a correspondent in Syria and Egypt. “And neither does anyone else. Your next guess is probably just as good as mine.”

Amid speculation and scandal surrounding the 18th Party Congress, which begins today, Whitman confessed that neither he nor any of his colleagues had any  notion about what is actually happening behind the walled compounds of Zhongnanhai and Beidahe, where the key decisions are usually made about the upcoming leadership transition.

“Sometimes, I feel embarrassed when people ask me what’s really going on with, say, Bo Xilai or Jiang Zemin and I have to kind of roll my eyes, shrug and sometimes even extend my hands, with the palms upwards, like I’m some kind of complete asshat,” said Whitman. “But honestly, we’re really doing our best.”

Whitman argues that, when it requires an immersive understanding of the internal, ongoing dynamics of the Chinese Communist Party as it approaches one of its most momentous power handovers in history, “There’s probably a box of interesting rocks on Jia Qinglin’s desk that knows more that we do.”

Observing somewhat bitterly that even the most well-researched bit of Pekingology might as well be pulled out of his own behind, Whitman pointed out that most of the sources available to well-placed journalists regarding the Party’s inner dynamics are likely to be in some way flawed, compromised or subject to bias.

“The next Chinese president is supposed to be Xi Jinping. But it might even be an Inner Mongolian goat herder. We just don’t know,” shrugged an exasperated Whitman, referring to the upcoming leadership handover.

“I mean, I could be writing my stuff from a beach in Uruguay, based on my wildest speculation, and still have about as much serious chance of getting it right as some guy who’s been here ten years on the fucking ground,” said Whitman, while close to tears of hysterical laughter. “In fact, I might as well do that – the weather’s sure as hell nicer over there.”

Citing the need to keep up basic appearances and present a semblance of authority, Whitman said foreign desk editors still routinely send journalists to China in order to go about their lives, prepare daily briefings and file new copy.

“I mean, I probably shouldn’t be telling you this but it’s all pointless, in a way. I don’t know why I bother sometimes,” Whitman shrugged. “I really don’t. I mean, think about it, man: Uruquay.”

Follow everything there is to know on China’s leadership transition at @chinadailyshow on Twitter

By BO YANQIU
Culture Correspondent

Ai Weiwei recently taunted authorities and art critics by posting a spoof music video on YouTube

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – Reclusive artist Ai Weiwei has permitted a small team of 46 foreign journalists to interview him, alongside everyone else.

“The other day, I thought: ‘I am going to have breakfast. And what’s so wrong with that? Why shouldn’t the New Yorker do a piece about it?’” the controversial artist mused to several correspondents, while pondering the 88-yuan lunch menu at Helen’s.

“Damned if I’m going to deny the world the details of my morning meal – it was congee, with orange juice,” Ai non-exclusively revealed.

Ai’s breakfast later became one of the New Yorker’s most popular China stories.

The bold meal choice was originally leaked to all 472 Beijing-based foreign reporters via a mass ‘tweet.’

This information was available only to those with a Twitter account, however – which is blocked on the mainland. China’s remaining 600 million web users remain locked in a dark vortex of Ai misinformation and ignorance, experts say.

Mainland opinion polls show that many Chinese believe South Korea is a country and that ‘Mao Zedong’ was just the wrong guy in the right place.

One elderly crone interviewed by China Daily Show had never actually heard of Korean pop single ‘Gangnam Style’ – even more depressingly, she was unable to grasp the potentially-subversive nature of Ai’s cover version, despite the fact that it was released months after the original.

“Please, leave me alone. Where am I?” 62-year-old Am Ding queried, her eyes darting nervously.

Meanwhile, for Chinese citizens craving further knowledge on Ai Weiwei, there is now little option but to read a foreign newspaper.

Follow exclusive China reportage with @chinadailyshow on Twitter

Editor’s note: The State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China recently published its unannotated annual report, titled ‘The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2011’.

You can read it on Xinhua or catch the full drift here:

You could read China Daily’s report… or save time and boil your head

On Life, Property and Personal Security

1. The United States has mighty strength in human, financial and material resources to exert effective control over violent crimes.
2. However, during a visit to New York last year, Madame Jing (my wife) left her sunglasses in the taxi and they were not returned. The driver also did not recognize Madame Jing, nor praise her husband’s initiatives developing a prosperous Gansu, nor pass on compliments regarding the motherland’s first desert hydro-electric plant in the glorious scrublands of our home province. [Intern: check dam has not collapsed]
3. The US constitution guarantees its citizens the right to bear arms. And yet the US allows its citizens to carry guns.
4. [Intern: Will cut ’n’ paste lengthy bits from Western media about gun crime, with detailed statistics, then quietly insert major unverified claim to conclude] [Editor: Aw. They grow up so fast]

On Civil and Political Rights [Editor: keep it short, eh?]

1. [Intern: Use quote from ‘Occupy the Wall Street’ person, remove quote marks, attribute to Washington Post?] [Editor Good idea, but cut non-relevant parts about ‘Occupy’ news blackout in the motherland]
2. [Editor: Find YouTube clip of ‘Pepper Spray Cop’ to imbed (use my VPN). Contact Pepper Spray Cop. What’s his side of story, etc?]
3. The US military is secretly manipulating social media sites by using fake online personas to create a false consensus in online conversations, crowd out unwelcome opinions and smother commentaries or reports that do not correspond with its own objectives. [Editor: Excellent idea – totally stolen from us. Pls check (Note to self: write angry op-ed)] [Intern: Search results who did not comply with relevant laws and regulations]
4. Netizen comments to go here.
5. The US government is secretly corrupt [Use block quotes from US Congressional Hearings for proof]

On Economic and Social Rights

1. Just rehash some of that earlier stuff re Wall Street? [Editor: YESSSS]
2. AIDS
3. [Editor: mention what happened with the Cowboys and Indians] [Intern: You mean the movie? Think the word ‘cowboys’ now considered ‘offensive’?]

On Education

1. On the morning of April 13, 2011, Thomas Jefferson Junior High schooler Martin Perry, 11, requested his teacher grant a bathroom break. Citing the lesson’s imminent conclusion, and with malice aforethought, the teacher, Miss Pennywright, did deny M Perry’s rights, resulting in the unavoidable consequences of M Perry besmirching his shorts, and suffering further abuses at the hands of his classmates. In addition to M Perry’s psychological suffering, a cub reporter from the Jefferson Junior Journal was later threatened with a noogie by classmate Geoff ‘Jugs’ McBain while investigating the incident. Local newspapers refused to run the story, citing vague state laws regarding privacy, protection of minors and public interest. [Source: Jefferson Junior Journal]

On Cultural Rights [Editor: let’s wrap this up ASAP. Wife getting impatient]

1. [Editor: surely can use that Cowboys and Indians stuff here?]
2. Ted Nugent.
3. You’re still reading?

Xinhua related news:

• Most of Venice Beach left to fight suns imperialist rays by itself, blasts DPRK
• Mass grave in Gettysburg Cemetery has been located by successful local curator: report

• Some X% of US voters actually voted for McCain at some point, apparently
• American drop-outs denied full college-education: exclusive
• Income gap widens between women, certain blacks, children and 50-year-old American white guys

Follow all your China-US news at @chinadailyshow on Twitter, maybe?

By Minzhu Jiao
South China Seas Correspondent

A typical Scarborough newsstand yesterday

LUZON ISLAND (China Daily Show) – The ailing reef print-media industry suffered a blow this week, after a newspaper announced record losses just one week after publishing its first edition.

The Scarborough Bugle, incorporating the Panatag Shoal Times-Inquirer, was launched last week at a glamorous press conference held on the barnacle-riven peak of South Rock.

With a venture-capital injection from Aquino Asset Management of around 40 million pesos, the Bugle announced it was aimed at bringing readers “all the patriotic news and views fit to print in the Scarborough Shoal Bay Area.”

The debut issue launched with a cover splash pledging loyalty to the Philippines and an exclusive interview with Economic Secretary Arsenio Balisacan. Inside, a two-page spread revealed that Lethal Weapon 2 had been confirmed for a long-awaited cinematic release on Scarborough in July.

Investors had hoped the Bugle would pick up offshore readers from the nearby Spratly Sun, which was forced to close last year amid allegations of conch-hacking.

Initial sales have proved disappointing however, with the 32-page daily newspaper struggling to sell even a single copy on the godforsaken atoll.

At newsstands across the 150-square kilometer shoal, the level of consumer disinterest was said to be disappointing, even by Scarborough Shoal standards.

“I’ve seen more activity among the mono-cellular marine life in a stagnant lagoon,” one disgruntled vendor reported.

Bugle staff say they are baffled at the lack of success.

“It’s really hard to understand – the market is wide open. There’s pretty much zero competition,” said editor-in-chief Bentley Wilson III. “But the wankers just aren’t picking up a copy.”

Despite scoops such as ‘Scarborough officials to boycott chopsticks’ and ‘Giant wave washes away capital city,’ the newspaper posted losses of 80 million pesos within just hours of going to press.

Nightlife editor Pipa Sipin nevertheless predicted that sales would likely bounce back after the tourist season began.

“Though when exactly that is, it’s hard to say,” Sipin added. “But if you hear of any bar openings, drop me a line, would you?”

Headlines such as ‘Pet Seagull Missing’ failed to tempt readers

The losses may cause the publishers to cancel an upcoming Sunday literary supplement and replace the food correspondent, after a ‘101 best starfish recipes to crunch your way to that beach body’ feature led to widespread illness in the newsroom.

Wilson has promised an aggressive marketing campaign to be plastered across local coral reefs, targeting passing fisherman and Chinese naval patrols.

With this publicity tactic comes the fear of Chinese reef review rip-offs, however. “It’s a fucking nightmare,” admitted Sipin.

Editor Wilson remains defiant.

“A lot of people said that launching a daily newspaper on an uninhabited and partially submerged group of rocks in heavily disputed oceanic territory was just plain foolish,” Wilson admitted.

“They’re all wrong. I’m now more determined than ever to prove that maritime print-media still has a strong future in the deep abyssal plains of the Luzon Sea.”

Follow Scarborough Shoal and China news at @chinadailyshow on Twitter

Editor’s note: Yang Rui is the Managing Editor and Host of the CCTV News puppet-show Monologue, which  presents news about China from a Chinese perspective and in a balanced way.

Yang is responding to an article posted May 18th on the website of the Wall Street Journal, which was published without his consent.

“For a long time now, many young Chinese have taken it for granted that every Westerner is the same: same face, same funny names  (“Randy” LOL), same language, same obsession with the concept of rights.

But we put up with them, you know? We welcome them into the country and gladly receive their advice, their expertise, their technology – but not their “rights”!

A lot of them I actually quite like. But last week I made a horrible discovery – I watched a number of videos [Editor’s note: two], involving the apparent attempted rape of a young Chinese girl on the streets of our capital and a “dissing” shown to a middle-aged woman on a train.

The sensational nature of the empowered new media means that some isolated events can trigger strong public reactions. And I wasn’t going to miss out on that.

I came up with the clever term “foreign trash” and suggested, quite reasonably, that they should all fuck the fuck off back to their homelands.

Since then, many have chosen to misrepresent my words. Wall Street Journal, I’m looking at you.

Of course, when I said, “people who can’t find jobs in the US come to China to grab our money, engage in human trafficking and spread deceitful lies to encourage emigration” what I meant was “the majority of foreigners are friendly. They travel, do business and make an honest living.”

At the time of writing that May 16 post, it was late on a Wednesday and I was, naturally, pretty loaded at the time. Things often get confused, blurry and emotional around 7.30pm of a mid-week evening and this was no less of the case here.

'We're cool now, right?'

I’d like to make one thing clear, however, and that is the mischaracterization of what I said in Chinese regarding expelled journalist Melissa Chan. “Po Fu,” if you look it up, does not mean “bitch.” It means “shrew.”

The shrew is the most noble of the field mammals. Its kind, inquisitive and furry features often bring delight to my heart when I see one scurry through the corn, its cute snout twitching on its way to store more nuts for winter. In short, what is wrong with being called a shrew?

I hope I’ve got away with that.”

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If you see this image, you're in for an hour of primo horsecrap

Al Jazeera English announced Tuesday that its Beijing correspondent, Melissa Chan, did not have her visa renewed. The following is a transcript of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s daily briefing, where spokesman Hong Lei answered foreign reporters’ questions about the Chinese government’s action.

Hong Li: [Enters to sound of Gary Glitter’s ‘Rock n Roll Part 2’] Good morning, everybody.

Q: I just want to know whether the expulsion of Melissa Chan should be seen as a warning to other journalists operating in China?

Hong Lei: Damn straight…

Q: Under what circumstances will Al Jazeera be given press credentials and visas for a new reporter?

Hong Lei: Let’s just say we’re awaiting reports of a cold front emanating from certain underworld regions.

Q: So if there is a new correspondent for Al Jazeera, will you give them a visa?

Hong Lei: Didn’t catch that. Ask me another.

Q: Can you tell us who made the decision to deny Ms. Chan: was it the Foreign Ministry or another department?

Hong Lei: Honestly? Not a clue. I’m gonna refer you here to our mysterious laws and regulations.

Q: Can you give us any specifics on why Melissa Chan was expelled from the country… because there is a lot of confusion here and unless you’re more specific about it it’s very difficult for us to get a picture of exactly what’s going on.

Hong Lei: She was not expelled… as far as I know, she left of her own volition.

[Laughter]

Q: I think the main concern of the journalists is that the Chinese government, you use the issue of visa as a way to censor journalists’ work in China. Is this a precedent of how the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will behave in the future?

Hong Lei: We do this every 14 years or so. So, yeah. No. Maybe.

Q: What could the Chinese government say if a Chinese journalist was expelled from a foreign country?

Hong Lei: Anybody else going to see Hanggai play this weekend?

Q: Chinese laws and regulations are written down, so even if we don’t know which ones Melissa is accused of violating, we know what they say. Nowhere I know is the Chinese government’s conception of journalistic ethics written down. How can we judge whether our behavior is consistent with Chinese conception of journalist ethics, and can you offer us guidance as to what that conception looks like?

Hong Lei: You’re asking me to lecture you on ethics? Oh, man. Wait till I tell the boys back in the ministry.

Q: What would the Chinese government say to accusations that it is censoring foreign media with the expulsion of Melissa Chan?

Hong Lei: We would give a convoluted and ultimately meaningless combination of diplomatic waffle and officialese, probably.

Q: Where can we see those regulations? Because we are having some problem finding which law and regulation was broken. So where can I check the regulation if I want to see some number or article was broken according to Chinese law?

Hong Lei: Look. They’re right over there – behind you! [Grabs documents, shuffles out to sound of Shaggy’s ‘It Wasn’t Me’]

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