China Newsweek Deputy General Editor Resigns Over False Report Of Jin Yong's Death

Yesterday came the news that because of the mistaken announcement of Jin Yong's death in the form of an official Weibo post, editor Deng Lihong from *China Newsweek* was fired, and deputy editor-in-chief Liu Xinyu also claimed on Weibo that he had resigned out of a sense of responsibility.

On one hand, there were heated debates among netizens about who should be held accountable; on the other hand, how to review and filter out false information on Weibo has also caused much reflection.

When rumors spread about Leslie Cheung being "resurrected," the verified users who spread the rumors later shrank back without anyone taking responsibility. However, in this incident where Jin Yong was falsely reported as deceased, it is indeed the first time someone has paid a price for forwarding false information on Weibo, making it the "first case of false Weibo rumors," even though *China Newsweek* was not the original source.

Lu Qi (Workplace Writer):

An employee of *China Newsweek*, Deng Lihong, worked overtime voluntarily for the company and was fired for mistakenly posting a Weibo message about Jin Yong. Chinese enterprises still exploit their employees, adopting the three no-principles of irresponsibility, lack of training, and lack of protection. Overtime work is free, achievements belong to everyone, benefits go to the leaders, but when something goes wrong, the responsibility falls on the employees.

It’s not me trying to shift the blame for this employee; in the entire matter, the systemic responsibility of *China Newsweek* far outweighs the individual responsibility of the employee. As a news media outlet with such influence, why wasn’t there a verification process? Why wasn’t there a self-supervision process? By abandoning the multi-level review system that media outlets should have, the final burden fell on the editor, which is why there are always news errors. Who bears the greater responsibility here?

Xiong Yiliang (Senior Blogger at Sina):

The vice editor-in-chief of *China Newsweek*, Liu Xinyu, and editor Xiao Deng, who posted the fake news about Jin Yong's death, both resigned, and mid-level editor Tang Yong was fined 10,000 yuan.

Liu Xinyu (Vice Editor-in-Chief of *China Newsweek*):

Today, the official Weibo account of the weekly magazine forwarded the false news of Mr. Jin Yong's passing. As the head of new media for the weekly, I sincerely apologize to all those who were hurt or troubled by this news, especially Mr. Jin Yong and his family.

After urgent investigation, we have basically clarified the ins and outs of this matter. The editor responsible for Sina Weibo saw this news on Fanfou and Sina and rashly forwarded it without any verification. This exposed the editor's lack of necessary journalistic integrity and also revealed loopholes in our management. Hereby, I represent the new media section of the weekly and sincerely accept everyone's criticism, and strive to take this as a lesson to avoid false reporting in the future. Please supervise us.

Thank you for your concern. I have already resigned today. My intention was to protect the editor who made an unintentional mistake while working overtime voluntarily, but I could not achieve that. But I hope this shows our willingness to take responsibility for our mistakes.