Recently, the Chinese newspaper Xinjing News exposed a food safety issue involving oil tankers transporting kerosene followed by carrying edible oil. This led to former Xinjing News journalist Chu Chaoxin writing an article titled “Heartless People,” directly criticizing the ambush Xinjing News faced afterward as “chilling.”
Chu Chaoxin, who had worked as a reporter for Xinjing News and Southern Weekend, had twice received the “Journalist of the Year” award from the Southern Newspaper Group.
In a WeChat post on the 14th, Chu Chaoxin accused Xinjing News of being attacked by “some wicked creatures with no conscience” after revealing the mixing of kerosene and edible oil carried by oil tankers, which he described as “heart-chilling.”
The article pointed out that in China’s current media environment, the focus on people’s livelihood and food safety issues by the media is for the sake of millions of people. Still, some individuals dare to question the exposed media and journalists.
It highlighted that the tactics of those who slander and attack the media always involve claims of “foreign manipulation” and “selective exposure.” The article stressed that if the media were truly manipulated by foreign forces, they would have been shut down long ago, and the personnel involved would have been arrested. Selective exposure is due to the limited scope within which the media can supervise. Criticizing and exposing a few companies may seem commendable, but it was not the case 20 or 30 years ago.
The article emphasized that Xinjing News exposing the issue of tainted oil aims to protect all ordinary citizens of the country, including a considerable portion of those participating in the attack on Xinjing News. It highlighted the irony that Xinjing News is trying to protect them, yet they are betraying the newspaper.
Chu Chaoxin shared that he had faced similar situations in the past. In June this year, he wrote about his hometown suffering from industrial pollution. He provided examples of four cases of industrial pollution in his hometown, two from the Central Environmental Protection Inspection reports, and two from media reports. The frequent occurrence of such environmental pollution problems in a small area should be taken seriously.
Local officials in his hometown issued orders to mobilize public officials to report his articles, claiming that they were spreading rumors.
In early of this month, Xinjing News exclusively exposed the scandal of oil tankers mixing edible oil. Reporters conducted extensive investigations and discovered that many tankers in China transport both edible liquids like syrup and soybean oil and chemical liquids like coal tar. To save costs, many tankers do not clean their tanks during the cargo exchange process, leading to contamination of edible oil by residual chemical liquids. The report revealed a tanker transporting coal tar oil from Ningxia to Qinhuangdao, Hebei, not cleaning the storage tank after unloading but directly loading edible soybean oil for further transportation.
The investigative journalist who reported this incident, Han Futao, had his Weibo account deactivated after the report drew attention, causing concern among many mainland Chinese netizens about his personal safety.