Xiong Lei

Hearsay no evidence for news reporting

By Xiong Lei (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-10 08:35

The unexpected telephone interview from China Daily aroused my interest in the alleged "one-off ivory sale" in Kenya caused by "demand from influx of Chinese workers."

I was called because I had just returned from a two-week tour to that East African country, which left me and my fellow tourists fascinated with our impressions of Kenya.

But, illegal trade in ivory? We never got wind of it while there, from Nairobi to Mombasa, Masai Mara to Amboseli, or at the Lakes Naivasha and Nakuru. We ventured to explore the famous game drive in the most popular national parks; we encountered herds of elephants and other animals; we took hundreds of pictures and we shopped wherever we went.

None of us, 17 in all, brought back anything made of ivory. Nor did the Chinese tourists in other groups I know of. We didn't even intend to buy anything made of bone, for fear it might turn out to be something made out of a tusk.

Yes, we did touch upon one thing related to tusk - that is Tusker, a Kenyan beer, which tasted not bad. Its advertisement could be seen wherever we went in the country, and I'm sure it was no sin to have a taste of it.

Not because we were not interested in shopping. We bought wood carvings, which we believe are of fake ebony, we bought masks and other kinds of curios, and Kenyan coffee beans and macadamia nuts.

But none of us bought anything made of ivory. Sometimes we spotted something lovely on display in some shops, which looked like it was made from tusks. We asked about them and we were always told they were made of "bone." Not sure of the authentic material, we always avoided the temptation, no matter how much we were attracted by them.

Before leaving Beijing, our tour guide from the BTG International Travel & Tours seriously warned all of us "not to buy anything made of ivory" even if it was on sale in the shop. "Ivory trade is banned and you may get arrested for carrying it, even if you are out of Kenya," he said.

We observed this discipline not because of his warning, but because we all stand for preservation of wildlife. In the safaris in Kenya, we were touched to see how wildlife struggled to survive the ever-hostile environment like drought, withering of grassland and dwindling water supply.

If the travel agency was conscious enough to educate transient visitors to Kenya like us to keep off the ivory trade, I'm sure the Chinese workers who would stay much longer must have received more serious an education on issues like that. Then how come that they are blamed for the act?

I traced the blame to a Reuters dispatch carried by The New York Times on Aug 31. The report had only one source, "a Kenya-based non-governmental organization" named "Wildlife Direct." But neither the organization nor the report presented any hard evidence confirming the link between increasing elephant poaching and orders for tusks placed by Chinese nationals working on projects in Africa.

How can you make a charge based on hearsay rather than evidence? If there were orders placed for tusks by Chinese workers, what about the people who took the orders? And the people involved in poaching, processing and transporting? It must be organized crime with many people and many parties involved. But why were only the "Chinese nationals" singled out?

The charge with so many loopholes is anything but trustworthy, and the media accepting and publicizing such information are irresponsible and unprofessional. It is a pity that such a piece could find its way onto an established newspaper like The New York Times.

All the Chinese workers I bumped into in Kenya were busy working along with their Kenyan partners on a highway from Nairobi to Amboseli. In the dust and scorching sun, they either drove a bulldozer or steamrolled, or did some measurement of a section of the newly paved road. Judged from their devotion to the work, I doubt if any of such people could steal the time to engage in the dirty trade.

I feel sad that people working so hard in spite of arduous conditions for African people's welfare should have been disgraced like that, as if stabbed on the back.

As a journalism teacher, however, I think I've got another living sample for my media ethics course, which will show my students what is unprofessional journalism.

The author is a guest professor of journalism with the Beijing Foreign Studies University.

(China Daily 09/10/2009 page8)