China media ethics debate rages as beverage giant slams paper for alleged smear
Nongfu Spring says Beijing Times reports on its water quality were orchestrated attack
Nongfu Spring, a leading national seller of bottled drinking water, has filed a complaint against the Beijing Times for publishing “false reports” about its water quality for a whole month, the company said in a weibo post on Monday.
The Hangzhou, Zhejiang-based company says it was retaliating against a series of 76 incriminating reports in the influential metropolitan subsidiary of the People’s Daily earlier this year.
Sales reportedly came to a standstill in the city after the Beijing Times alleged that the water standard used by the company was inferior to Soviet standards in a series of articles that spanned over a month between April and May.
Nongfu says the 76 articles of reporting by the Beijing daily were false and constituted an orchestrated attack against the company. It has filed a complaint with the General Administration of Press and Publication, the state press regulator in charge of issuing publication licences, it said.
Representatives of the Beijing Times have not yet responded to the allegations. They have previously stood by their reports.
Nongfu’s counter-attack comes half a year after the reports began, but just one day after a national meeting between senior editors and state regulators at the All-China Journalists Association in Beijing. Di Huisheng, the association’s Communist Party secretary, announced measures taken by the central government to curb “targeted news extortion”, namely incriminating reports on companies by journalists who were tipped off and, allegedly, handsomely rewarded by competitors.