Wang Keqin
Encyclopedia
Wang Keqin is an influential Chinese
muckraking
reporter and blog
ger. He is also a professor at Peking University
in Beijing
.
in the Gansu
Province of the People's Republic of China
. Before becoming a reporter, Wang was a farmer in Gansu. It was here where he discovered journalism in the mid-80s. He received about for each article he wrote, or as he said, enough for six bowls of noodles. He began by writing propaganda
stories for the local media. In 1989 he began working for the Gansu Economics Daily. After publishing his story that uncovered a fraudulent securities
company, he was hired by the Beijing-based China Economic Times, where he now works as chief reporter.
s he compiles. "You have to make the evidence iron-cast," he explains. In 2002, Wang published a story exposing the "stranglehold" that Chinese taxi companies have on their drivers. This influenced Premier Wen Jiabao
to order a cleanup of the taxi industry. On November 30, 2005, Wang published a story about an AIDS
epidemic in the Henan
province caused by poor sterilization
of needles when collecting paid blood donation
s. On March 8, 2010, he and a student were physically and verbally attacked while trying to visit Yuan Weijing, wife of imprisoned civil and political rights activist Chen Guangcheng
. As a result, Reporters Without Borders
urged the Shandong
provincial government to investigate the incident and stop it from reoccurring with other visitors.
securities company that had defrauded customers of millions of dollars. The company had committed securities fraud
by displaying stock ticker
s and computer screens with the names of real companies but with fake investment returns
. On April 29 of the same year, the paper was closed down by the provincial publicity department because of this story. When the paper was allowed to reopen four months later, local officials told Wang that he was no longer allowed to work there. However, the China Economic Times picked up the story and subsequently offered Wang a job as a senior reporter in January 2002. Publishing this story resulted in threats to both Wang and his family from the local mafia
running the scam; he is sometimes referred to as "China's most expensive reporter" because of the $600,000 price put on his head. An internal report on his work from the Xinhua News Agency
reached the Premier of the People's Republic of China
at the time, Zhu Rongji
, who ordered police protection for Wang and his family and brought Wang to Beijing so he could continue his journalism.
s in the Shanxi
province caused four children to die and 74 others to become ill. He reported that the vaccines were deliberately left unrefrigerated in order to stop the labels from peeling off. Shanxi officials claimed that Wang's story was incorrect, and within hours of publication, the report had been downplayed on other media outlets following orders from the Propaganda Department of the Communist Party of China. The chief editor, publisher, and Communist Party secretary of the China Economic Times, Bao Yueyang, was fired after defending the report, and moved to a minor sister company. Wang was later warned that his life may be in danger if he returned to the Shanxi province.
Chinese people
The term Chinese people may refer to any of the following:*People with Han Chinese ethnicity ....
muckraking
Muckraker
The term muckraker is closely associated with reform-oriented journalists who wrote largely for popular magazines, continued a tradition of investigative journalism reporting, and emerged in the United States after 1900 and continued to be influential until World War I, when through a combination...
reporter and blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
ger. He is also a professor at Peking University
Peking University
Peking University , colloquially known in Chinese as Beida , is a major research university located in Beijing, China, and a member of the C9 League. It is the first established modern national university of China. It was founded as Imperial University of Peking in 1898 as a replacement of the...
in Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
.
Early life
Wang was born in the Yongdeng CountyYongdeng County
Yongdeng County is an administrative district in Gansu, the People's Republic of China. It is one of 58 counties of Gansu. It is part of the Lanzhou prefecture, with the city of the same name being the prefecture seat...
in the Gansu
Gansu
' is a province located in the northwest of the People's Republic of China.It lies between the Tibetan and Huangtu plateaus, and borders Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia to the north, Xinjiang and Qinghai to the west, Sichuan to the south, and Shaanxi to the east...
Province of the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
. Before becoming a reporter, Wang was a farmer in Gansu. It was here where he discovered journalism in the mid-80s. He received about for each article he wrote, or as he said, enough for six bowls of noodles. He began by writing propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
stories for the local media. In 1989 he began working for the Gansu Economics Daily. After publishing his story that uncovered a fraudulent securities
Securities fraud
Securities fraud, also known as stock fraud and investment fraud, is a practice that induces investors to make purchase or sale decisions on the basis of false information, frequently resulting in losses, in violation of the securities laws....
company, he was hired by the Beijing-based China Economic Times, where he now works as chief reporter.
Journalism
Wang is known for carrying a small box containing a sponge soaked in red ink, which he uses to collect fingerprints from witnesses to confirm their agreement on the witness statementWitness statement
A witness statement is a statement summarising the oral evidence that a witness will give at trial. The purpose the witness statement is to set out the evidence of the witness; in some jurisdictions the statement will stand as the evidence in chief of the witness , and the trial will simply...
s he compiles. "You have to make the evidence iron-cast," he explains. In 2002, Wang published a story exposing the "stranglehold" that Chinese taxi companies have on their drivers. This influenced Premier Wen Jiabao
Wen Jiabao
Wen Jiabao is the sixth and current Premier and Party secretary of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, serving as China's head of government and leading its cabinet. In his capacity as Premier, Wen is regarded as the leading figure behind China's economic policy...
to order a cleanup of the taxi industry. On November 30, 2005, Wang published a story about an AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
epidemic in the Henan
Henan
Henan , is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the central part of the country. Its one-character abbreviation is "豫" , named after Yuzhou , a Han Dynasty state that included parts of Henan...
province caused by poor sterilization
Sterilization (microbiology)
Sterilization is a term referring to any process that eliminates or kills all forms of microbial life, including transmissible agents present on a surface, contained in a fluid, in medication, or in a compound such as biological culture media...
of needles when collecting paid blood donation
Blood donation
A blood donation occurs when a person voluntarily has blood drawn and used for transfusions or made into medications by a process called fractionation....
s. On March 8, 2010, he and a student were physically and verbally attacked while trying to visit Yuan Weijing, wife of imprisoned civil and political rights activist Chen Guangcheng
Chen Guangcheng
Chen Guangcheng is a blind civil rights activist in the People's Republic of China who drew international attention to human rights issues in rural areas. He was placed under house arrest from September 2005 to March 2006 after talking to Time magazine about the forced abortion cases he...
. As a result, Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders is a France-based international non-governmental organization that advocates freedom of the press. It was founded in 1985, by Robert Ménard, Rony Brauman and the journalist Jean-Claude Guillebaud. Jean-François Julliard has served as Secretary General since 2008...
urged the Shandong
Shandong
' is a Province located on the eastern coast of the People's Republic of China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history from the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River and served as a pivotal cultural and religious site for Taoism, Chinese...
provincial government to investigate the incident and stop it from reoccurring with other visitors.
Securities fraud story
On February 3, 2001, Wang published in the Gansu Economics Daily a "groundbreaking" report uncovering a hucksterHuckster
A huckster is a seller of small articles, who tricks others into buying cheap imitation products and then bargains them as if they were the real thing...
securities company that had defrauded customers of millions of dollars. The company had committed securities fraud
Securities fraud
Securities fraud, also known as stock fraud and investment fraud, is a practice that induces investors to make purchase or sale decisions on the basis of false information, frequently resulting in losses, in violation of the securities laws....
by displaying stock ticker
Stock Ticker
Stock Ticker is a now out of print board game that was popular upon its release and is still played today. It was released by Copp-Clark Publishing, a venerable Canadian publisher.-Game play:...
s and computer screens with the names of real companies but with fake investment returns
Rate of return
In finance, rate of return , also known as return on investment , rate of profit or sometimes just return, is the ratio of money gained or lost on an investment relative to the amount of money invested. The amount of money gained or lost may be referred to as interest, profit/loss, gain/loss, or...
. On April 29 of the same year, the paper was closed down by the provincial publicity department because of this story. When the paper was allowed to reopen four months later, local officials told Wang that he was no longer allowed to work there. However, the China Economic Times picked up the story and subsequently offered Wang a job as a senior reporter in January 2002. Publishing this story resulted in threats to both Wang and his family from the local mafia
Organized crime
Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...
running the scam; he is sometimes referred to as "China's most expensive reporter" because of the $600,000 price put on his head. An internal report on his work from the Xinhua News Agency
Xinhua News Agency
The Xinhua News Agency is the official press agency of the government of the People's Republic of China and the biggest center for collecting information and press conferences in the PRC. It is the largest news agency in the PRC, ahead of the China News Service...
reached the Premier of the People's Republic of China
Premier of the People's Republic of China
The Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China , sometimes also referred to as the "Prime Minister" informally, is the Leader of the State Council of the People's Republic of China , who is the head of government and holds the highest-ranking of the Civil service of the...
at the time, Zhu Rongji
Zhu Rongji
Zhū Róngjī is a prominent Chinese politician who served as the Mayor and Party chief in Shanghai between 1987 and 1991, before serving as Vice-Premier and then the fifth Premier of the People's Republic of China from March 1998 to March 2003.A tough administrator, his time in office saw the...
, who ordered police protection for Wang and his family and brought Wang to Beijing so he could continue his journalism.
Vaccines story
On March 17, 2010, after six months of investigation, Wang published a story in the China Economic Times exposing how a "gross failure" to refrigerate vaccineVaccine
A vaccine is a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism, and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe or its toxins...
s in the Shanxi
Shanxi
' is a province in Northern China. Its one-character abbreviation is "晋" , after the state of Jin that existed here during the Spring and Autumn Period....
province caused four children to die and 74 others to become ill. He reported that the vaccines were deliberately left unrefrigerated in order to stop the labels from peeling off. Shanxi officials claimed that Wang's story was incorrect, and within hours of publication, the report had been downplayed on other media outlets following orders from the Propaganda Department of the Communist Party of China. The chief editor, publisher, and Communist Party secretary of the China Economic Times, Bao Yueyang, was fired after defending the report, and moved to a minor sister company. Wang was later warned that his life may be in danger if he returned to the Shanxi province.