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2012-01-13

Media extortion: The DaVinci Saga in China

In a Retailer's Crisis, Hunting for the Real Knockoff
In the letters to GAPP and SARFT, Da Vinci claimed Li as a CCTV reporter had been responsible for intentionally misleading news reports, favoritism, hiding the truth and using his ties to Tang and Cui for extortion.
In letters to CCTV, company officials requested a public apology and a retraction of Weekly Quality Report's first segement. They also said they would retain the right to sue CCTV for defamation and financial losses.
Discipline committee members in mid-December told Caixin they'd received a letter from Da Vinci and were investigating, but had reached no conclusion.
Caixin learned Da Vinci has filed a case with the Beijing police for extortion and fraud on the part of Li and Cui.
There's also a length blog post on the story from the same media source as the above story: The Da Vinci “Code” of Middlemen, Bribes, Power
Although media autonomy is the basis for eradicating media corruption, without checks and balances, power will inevitably corrupt. China’s media exists in a pyramid-like hierarchy. The central media stands alone in its size and influence, and once a scandal breaks out in the central media, it is likely to affect all media in China in a negative way. The good news in the Da Vinci case, however, is that while the scandal involves CCTV, it was Caixin’s Century Weekly magazine that exposed the story. From this, we can see that there are checks and balances within Chinese media as a result of competition, an important force in resolving corruption.

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