Apologize or I sue, official tells CCTV
- Source: Global Times
- [00:49 August 26 2009]
- Comments
By Chen Yang
A Shanghai Party official has threatened to sue State-broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) for broadcasting his photo and accusing him of corruption.
Tao Jianguo, Party secretary of Xinghuo village in Shanghai's Pudong New Area, said unless CCTV makes a public apology for wrongly using his photo in a bribery story about another official with the same name, he will seek legal action.
“I want them to delete all the photos of me that have circulated on the Internet after CCTV wrongly used it in its story. I also want a full statement as to what happened and how mistakes were made. And I want an apology made on air,” he told reporters yesterday.
CCTV-2 used his photo to accompany a story about another Tao Jianguo, the division chief in charge of construction planning approval for the Pudong New Area, who allegedly accepted 14.85 million yuan ($2.17 million) in bribes.
Photos of the wrong Tao quickly spread across the web and were used on hundreds of sites, identifying him as the corrupt official in question.
“The photo CCTV used was taken when I was a member of Nanhui District People’s Congress in Shanghai. Now this photo is being widely circulated on the Internet and TV, and my family and I are suffering. Our reputations are being ruined,” Tao said.
He said he had contacted CCTV but they had not yet responded.
“No one has contacted me to apologize for the costly mistake, and I am considering suing CCTV to safeguard my reputation,” Tao said.
Some of the websites that carried the story have taken his photo down, including popular sites Netease and sina.com.
“I have no idea about this incident. But we will investigate,” a CCTV spokesman, surnamed Zhao, told the Global Times last night.
“All the media, websites and TV, that carried the wrong photo, have infringed on Tao’s rights and damaged his reputation. The broadcasters should check the authenticity of all photos before they go public,” Cao Jimin, a lawyer from Shen Da Law Firm in Shanghai, said.
“All should delete Tao’s photo as soon as possible, and they should publicly apologize to Tao to eliminate the ill effects they have brought,” he said.
