Apparently, CGTN quoted “Laurène Beaumond”, a French journalist, which is alleged to not exist. It’s currently the top post of /r/worldnews and people are eating it up. I find it fishy though: it has no sources and no links to the actual CGTN “propaganda”, so from the article alone there’s no way to know if the CGTN even mentioned said journalist.
Does anyone have any information about this? It was also reported by RFI (not to be confused with Radio Free Asia) and La Monde, but I don’t speak French so I can’t effectively go looking for their articles (which, again, would have been nice if they linked to their damn sources). Does anyone know of a journalist by that name, or the actual CGTN reporting that mentioned them? Or even the French reports that this article was based off?
Right now, my thought is that this is either just fake or severely out of context. Still, anyone know anything about this?
I can’t access all of Le Monde’s article due to paywall (fucking lol), but you can access most of the article and what they’re saying is that she should be or should have been registered for a press identity card which is a register that exists in France to prove that you are a journalist and get you some privileges.
Then I wrote several paragraphs to explain the issue I have with Le Monde’s “research” (They did none) but CGTN published a retort here: https://francais.cgtn.com/n/BfJEA-BAA-IA/DcJCcA/index.html and I have nothing to add lol.
That was a piss-poor article from Le Monde, they only checked a national register (in a couple hours too) where journalists can register, but don’t have to. And so they concluded Laurène did not exist… and also that she followed the party line, so she must have been a Chinese citizen pretending to be a French journalist, right?
Then CGTN says the point is moot anyway, since Laurène Beaumond is obviously a pseudonym the author used to avoid hostilities. In a world where being anti-China is politically correct, she might have chosen to remain anonymous (their response article doesn’t confirm this was the case but that this was an explanation).
Until Redditors and Le Monde can prove this wasn’t a fake name, they should shut up and sit down. They have no evidence for what they say and CGTN doesn’t have to publish the author’s true identity.
Good thing they used a pseudonym or they could be receiving death threats.
Holy crap why didn’t I consider that possibility? Totally makes sense.
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“100% fake!!” declared 100% real French journalist Adrienne Zenzmerde.
