The New York Times has riled the elites of China with a damning look into Premier Wen Jiabao's finances published on Friday.
Wen's family have already hinted at legal action against the Times, and government machinery is coming out to try and hide and discredit the report.
Today state newspaper People's Daily has published an article looking at scandals such as the 2003 Jayson Blair in the Times' past, titled “New York Times: Scandals multiply and reputation deteriorates”.
Unfortunately, as the FT's Simon Rabinovich notes, the entire article appears to be plagiarized itself. Here are the issues Rabinovich notes:
- The opening criticism of the Times’ fallen standards and the description of the Kouwe case? From a 2010 report by China News Agency.
- The description of the Blair case? Lifted straight from two People’s Daily articles in 2003 (at least it is copying itself).
- The account of “Journalistic Fraud”, the book? From a 2003 article by China News Agency.
- And that final quote from the once-loyal reader? A translation by Dongxi (a now-defunct translation website) of a 2011 article that appeared on Splicetoday.com.
SEE ALSO: Bombshell Report Reveals That Wen Jiabao's Wife Is 'Queen' Of China's Diamond Industry >
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