Homer Simpson's brain, or why Xinhua continues to have a credibility problem

The New China News Agency (Xinhua, 新華社) has a credibility problem. It's not just because NCNA is a state-run news agency that publishes propaganda alongside news. It's also because basic editorial processes are so broken that a "file photo" of Homers Simpson's brain can show up alongside a serious article about multiple sclerosis, and remain there for days (it was not removed until August 3, four days after it was initially posted).

Now, you may chuckle at what appears to be a one-off mistake, but it reflects major editorial problems at China's official news agency. This is not just a harmless error (or prank) by a single employee -- it's very likely that at least two other people were involved, and the editorial processes that are supposed to catch such mistakes either failed to work or are not even in place at Xinhua.

I work for a major technology news publisher. Multiple people contribute to and review each article that appears online, before and after the initial publication process. It can't be much different at Xinhua. Aside from writing and copy editing the article, someone -- probably a writer, or the editor "Han Lin" -- had to choose the photo to be included with it. Someone else may have helped prepare the photo for the Xinhua website (resizing it, placing it on the appropriate server, etc.). A third person -- in a normal newsroom, that would be a more senior editor, or someone directly responsible for the website updates -- probably vetted it before it went live, or immediately after it went live. Other employees almost certainly browsed it after publication.

And it never occurred to any of them that the X-ray seemed unusual. I mean, c'mon! Even if you've never seen the Simpsons, wouldn't an X-ray of an oddly shaped skull with a serious overbite and walnut-sized brain warrant a little extra discussion or examination?

But wait, there's more. Since the publication of the article on July 30 (three days ago), people have noticed. Other media outlets have noticed, including Computerworld. It's hard to believe no one at Xinhua has realized the gaffe. Maybe no one checks the Xinhua email inbox?

This is not the first time something like this has happened. China's state-run media has lifted articles off the 'Net before, and has sometimes reprinted hoaxes as news -- as evidenced by the fiasco caused by a 2002 Onion article about the U.S. Congress threatening to relocate the Capitol. The Internet has made it much easier for careless or lazy journalists to copy and paste, and Xinhua's weak QA processes make it easier for plagiarized content, hoaxes, and false or exaggerated information to make it past the gatekeepers.

But even before the World Wide Web appeared, the English-language service had a credibility problem. While viewed as an authoritative source of information about Chinese policies (which is one of the reasons I used it as the basis for my thesis research), Western audiences did not trust its news output, partially owing to its stated propaganda mission, and partially because of quality issues, ranging from poorly written articles to long delays in printing coverage of important events. Since the 1980s, Xinhua/NCNA has invested a great deal of money and effort into making itself a "world news agency" (see Robin Porter's 1992 book, Reporting the News from China, and Won Ho Chang's 1989 history, Mass Media in China: The History and the Future). But as long as the propaganda mission persists, and editorial quality is neglected, there is little chance the English-language service will achieve widespread international respectability.