Photo of Chinese journalist who exposed milk powder scandal in 2008 misrepresented online
- Published on July 17, 2024 at 11:27
- Updated on July 19, 2024 at 04:34
- 3 min read
- By Tommy WANG, AFP Hong Kong
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"Please remember his name: Han Futao! He is the chief reporter of The Beijing News," read a simplified Chinese Weibo post from July 10, 2024.
"He was the one who revealed that tanker trucks carrying coal oil were directly used to ship cooking oil, an incident that affects the health of the whole population. He is a hero, show him respect, don't let a hero remain unknown!"
Han Futao is a journalist at the Chinese state-backed Beijing News, which published an investigation in July into the use of containers carrying coal oil to also transport cooking oil with no cleaning in between journeys -- in what it called an "open secret" in the transportation industry (archived link).
Truck drivers told the newspaper the practice helped to cut costs in the face of increasing competition.
China's latest food safety scandal has sparked outrage in the country, which has seen a string of incidents involving pork processing plants, contaminated milk powder and an employee urinating on raw ingredients for beer.
The Chinese central government announced it would launch an investigation
Posts falsely claiming the photo showed The Beijing News journalist spread on Facebook, X and in a string of news reports about the cooking oil scandal, including by Hong Kong's Sing Tao Daily, Taiwan's Tai Sounds, Storm Media, Mirror Media, broadcaster TVBS and FTV News, online news site Newtalk and CTWant, as well as Malaysia's Oriental Daily News.
However, the photo shows a different journalist.
Contaminated milk powder
Keyword and reverse image searches on Google found the same photo published in an article titled "Alumni interview: Jian Guangzhou" published by Nanchang University's journalism school on April 9, 2021 (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the image in false posts (left) and the photo published by Nanchang University (right).
The original, high-resolution photo shows smaller text on the billboard reading: "Jian Guangzhou. A China news reporter for the Oriental Morning Post, the first reporter to expose Sanlu Group's "melamine milk powder" incident."
Jian was one of the first journalists in 2008 to expose Chinese dairy giant Sanlu Group's use of the chemical melamine -- normally used to make plastic -- in milk powder to give the impression of higher protein content (archived link).
At least six babies died, and nearly 300,000 were sickened, after drinking the tainted milk formula, AFP reported.
China handed out stiff sentences to 19 Sanlu executives, while two others were sentenced to death for their role in the scandal.
The photo of Jian was also used in a BBC Chinese report on September 4, 2012 about his resignation from the Oriental Morning Post (archived link).
Jian also clarified that the photo showed him in a post on his verified Weibo account.
He wrote that "some people have mistaken my photo for brother Han", referring to The Beijing News' Han Futao.
July 19, 2024 This story was updated to correct links in the seventh line
July 17, 2024 This story was updated to change the screenshot of the false post
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