Media should help defend rights of consumers

Chinese news outlets can do a better job of pressuring industries and supervisory departments

The annual gala of China Central Television on March 15, the International Consumer Rights Protection Day, always sparks more disputes than is expected, because it seems the program should be fairer while trying to expose violations of market rules by companies and businesspeople, which demands hard work and guts.

CCTV, as the only national TV station, has one of the largest advertising revenues among the Chinese media, at more than 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion).

This year's program (popularly called the "3.15" gala) focused on Land Rover's problematic gearbox and the after-sales service of Nissan. Last year, according to China Consumers' Association, Volkswagen, Ford and General Motors were the top three brands against which consumers lodged complaints regarding quality and after-sales service. Ironically, all three companies are big advertisers on CCTV.

Last year, the program criticized Apple's "discriminative" attitude toward its smartphone consumers and indifferent after-sales service in China, while ignoring poor after-sales service of some other brands. But iPhone sales, instead of dropping, are still rising in China.

A CCA report shows consumers' complaints against e-vendors have increased rapidly in recent years, and the dearth of specific laws on e-commerce is making it even more difficult for e-shoppers to safeguard their rights and interests. But CCTV rarely sheds light on this problem.

Interestingly, the "3.15" gala, which had been telecast at 8 pm sharp for years, started 44 minutes behind schedule this year, prompting many to speculate that CCTV had changed the program at the last minute by deleting the reports on e-shoppers' complaints. CCTV re-telecast Premier Li Keqiang's news conference after 7:30 pm, in which he hailed the e-commerce sector as a job creator and consumption stimulator, after having showed it live in the morning, and cited that as an excuse for the delay in the "3.15" gala.

Media outlets should maintain their independence and not link their interests with the reports they publish or telecast. Last year's corruption case involving CCTV's former business channel director and advertisement department chief Guo Zhenxi revealed the depth to which some media outlets fall to get their advertisement revenue. Guo abused his power to decide which enterprises should be praised and which criticized.

Many consumers cannot get justice for being cheated by businesses because it is both difficult and expensive to seek the shelter of the Law on the Protection of Consumers Rights and Interests. For one, the onus is on the consumer to gather evidence to prove that he or she has indeed been cheated by a particular company.

Of course, the media cannot play the role of the judiciary, but they can at least urge the legislature to make the law easier to apply.

Also, some outdated industrial standards and rules, as well as slack supervision not only favor state-owned enterprises, but also leave plenty of loopholes for foreign enterprises to use in order to lower their standards to "adapt to" the Chinese market.

Last year, an investigative reporter of a Shanghai-based TV station exposed that the US-based OSI Group LLC's unit in the city reprocessed expired food such as meat products and changed their expiry dates before supplying them to major fast food chains like KFC, McDonald's and Pizza Hut. In such cases, which are related to the health and well-being of the people, the media can pressure industry associations and quality supervision departments to fulfill their responsibilities to protect consumers and keep the market in order.

In other words, the media should defend public interests but not use them as an excuse to fulfill their own economic interests.

The author is a writer with China Daily. Contact the writer at liyang@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 03/27/2015 page13)