...now that their government rides to the rescue:
China is creating a database with profiles on the thousands of foreign reporters who will be covering next summer's Beijing Olympics, a top [Chinese] official said in comments published yesterday.
The database...was designed to prevent people from posing as journalists to trick or blackmail interview subjects, Liu Binjie (柳斌杰), minister of the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), was quoted as saying in the state-run China Daily.
"Disguising as reporters to threaten and intimidate others to collect money is cheating and very dangerous to society," Liu was quoted as saying.
In China, people sometimes pose as reporters to extort money from corrupt officials or demand payment for false promises of favorable news coverage. [emphasis added]
Don't you just HATE it when you spend mucho renminbi bribing a reporter for favorable coverage, only to find some bloody SCAM ARTIST with a phony press badge has made off with the loot instead? Why, there oughtta be a law!
Against fake reporters, I mean. Not against honest, hard-working officials whose only crime is wanting to spread the wealth with deserving, accountable, and most importantly, gub'mint-licensed members of the Fourth Estate.
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