At a minimum, the Chinese did conduct a real interview, and even quoted directly from what the man said.

Is this somehow worse than the Dan Rather documents?

And on what basis did Bennett tape the interview? Did he request a release from his Chinese interlocutors? Did they grant such a release? If not, isn’t he acting in a manner that is worse than that of WEF/Davos, which said they couldn’t release the tapes unless all involved granted permission?

Although I don’t think Jaques Cousteau could hold his breath that long…

If Mr. Bennett was responsible enough to record the interview for the Post’s archives (there seems to be some evidence for this based on his response to Hewitt), for the interests of history and the good name of the Washington Post, Mr. Bennet should release the tape to the public. The whole thing.

That said, it does seem as if Mr. Bennett was very, very badly misquoted. His original remarks are pretty tame, and not really objectionable. I do think that even though he is a journalist, as an American Mr. Bennett has a duty — a moral duty, if not a legal one — to refrain from willingly serving as a propaganda tool for a foreign dictatorship.

And based on the transcript, he didn’t do that. The People’s Daily butcherd his quotes and gave them an entirely different meaning.

Dan Rather has indicated he would like to break this story…

I don’t see an issue, let alone a scandal here. I was not particularly shocked by the Bennett’s statements even in their first iteration since it was more the tone than the content (in particular, the one-sidedness and potential propaganda value) that might have been problematic and I had assumed that much of the context was missing. I frankly don’t see a problem at all with the statement actually made as corrected by Bennett. In fact, I agree with it.

What? Was he supposed to preface each sentence by saying “of course, China is an evil dictatorship!”? Is there a now a litmus test for journalistic credibility requiring that the journalist include some minimum of condemnatory remarks when being interviewed by an authoritarian government, lest he be deemed a propaganda tool? (Useful idiot? ‘Objectively pro-fascist’?)

This sort of criticism of Bennett’s non-issue only serves to detract from legitimate criticism of journalists, such as in the Eason Jordan and Dan Rather cases.

Gabriel

I live in Hong Kong. Americans, as matter of course, talk to the Chinese every day in various media outlets across China and this is a standard interview.

Of course the Chinese censor it and change its meaning, but astonishingly you use the Chinese version as a basis of your ever so hackneyed attack on Bennett (using the now familiar Evil Liberal MSM frame.)

Well, yawn, yawn, Mr. Simon. Perhaps you might like to learn something about the Chinese or China and I’m afraid you earlier dalliance with Maoism doesn’t count.

BTW I was watching the Chinese state broadcaster and I saw an American politician talking about Beijing and Tianamen Square to a Chinese interviewer. Not once were the events of 1989 mentioned by the American, not even a hint.

No need for censorship there, no edits.