Powdered water and student cyborgs: April Fool’s Day fails in China and Hong Kong
Pulling off a successful April 1 media spoof is doubtless harder in the ‘fake news’ era of Donald Trump. Oh for the days when Chinese state media editors, and some Hongkongers, could be counted on to fall for them
In the era of Donald Trump, it can be hard to sort the real news from the fake. If there’s anyone who can sympathise, it’s the editors of newspapers in China.
April Fool’s Day can be a minefield for the perennially unfunny Chinese state media, which, it seems, just can’t take a joke. It’s the one day each year when Western media intentionally run fake news – and the Chinese media is often caught out. After falling for an article naming North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un the “Sexiest Man Alive” and running news of the world’s first ever glass-floored aeroplane, some media outlets in China have wisely decided to opt out altogether. On April Fool’s Day 2016, China’s official news agency, Xinhua, urged its readers not to spread rumours, saying the day was “not in keeping with our national cultural tradition or socialist core values”.
It wasn’t the first time China had put a dampener on the day of jokes. Back in 1993, state-owned China Youth Daily was forced to run a front-page apology after its prank – the very first April Fool’s Day story in Chinese media – was too convincing. In 2011, malls in Changsha, Hunan, banned any April 1 tomfoolery aimed at tricking their customers, and a year later China threatened to imprison people who shared “irresponsible rumours” online.
“Media in general is always looking for a good story, so as such it’s easy to make them vulnerable to anything that seems exceptional,” said University of Hong Kong sociology professor Cho Li-fung, who researches the news media in China. “I’m not aware of any evidence or research that says Chinese [Communist] Party news media are more easily duped than their counterparts around the world.”
The Chinese government didn’t want the media spreading rumours or fake news, as that could threaten stability, she said. “Critics might say this is very paternalistic. However, they [the government] want to avoid chaos and disorder at all costs. Particularly with social media, rumours abound,” she said. “I think for the government, it’s not funny.”