前新华社记者史小帆致国际先驱导报的公开信

作者授权发表，如需转载请直接联系作者本人。对史小帆证据确凿的谴责，国际先驱导报和文章作者至本文发布之时并没有以任何方式做出回应。欢迎大家参与对大众如何监督媒体信息真实性的讨论。

    偶读巴黎出版的美国报纸International Herald Tribune，发现一篇奥巴马访华报道中有不实之处，于是提笔写了质疑，亲自送至该报编辑部，却被门卫堵在门外，说亚洲编辑在香港。给香港的亚洲编辑发邮件后，又说应由巴黎的编辑负责。但等了10天了，未见任何答复。
    前两次提质疑，也都是石沉大海式的结果，所以这次才想到登门拜访。折腾了一番，还是同样的结果。我早就没了脾气。但一直想与外媒交流，就是不知如何做。
    将我写的质疑传给你们看看（见附件），请帮我传播一下，也帮我出出主意，怎么才能与外媒更直接的交流。
史晓帆于巴黎

November 20, 2009, Paris  

Dear IHT Asia Editor,

Reading a front-page story carried in IHT on November 17 entitled “In China, Obama gets limited exposure”（You should pay to read the Article – The Editor of Comprendre la Chine）, I found a misleading message which is not true to the fact.

The article filed by by Helene Cooper and David Barboza from Shanghai is about President Obama’s dialogue with students in Shanghai. According it, “Some of his (Obamas’) remarks, including his comments about opening up the Internet, were initially posted on Chinese news sites. But they were taken down after a few hours.” By writing so, the two IHT journalists seem to try to tell their readers how strictly controlled the Internet in China is , at least as far as Obamas’s dialogue with the Shanghai students is concerned. Unfortunately, they are only providing a fabricated fact to support their ideas.

After checking www.xinhua.org today, I found the Chinese translation of the full text of Obama’s dialogue with the Shanghai students is always posted there. I purposed searched a quote of Obama’s remarks by the IHT article, which reads: “Freedom of expression and worship, of access to information and political participation, we believe are universal rights.” I found  Xinhua’s version is almost the same as the version translated by American Embassy in China, except for few translation nuances (Xinhua version: . 表达自由、宗教崇拜自由、接触信息的机会、政治的参与，我们认为这些是普世的权利。American Embassy version:表达自由和宗教信仰自由——获得信息和政治参与的自由——我们认为这些自由都是普世的权利).  I telephoned Xinhuanet editor in Beijing, asking how long they will keep the full text of the dialogue, and they said “for as long as possible”.

In addition to Xinhua, the exclusive website to broadcast live Obama’s dialogue with Shanghai students, I also searched other Chinese sites such as sina, Huanqiu, cctv, etc. and found huge number of reports on this dialogue, with many dealing with Obama’s remarks on Internet freedom (I just quote here one example found from www.sina.com.cn: 如何看待互联网世界网络管理：坚定支持互联网开放使用——在信息流动方面，我认为越是能够自由的信息流通，社会就变得越强。我一直坚定的支持互联网开放使用，在美国我们没有限制使用互联网。实际上，我这次胜选原因之一我们能通过互联网动员很多年轻人。)

I would like to take this opportunity, dear Asian editor, to humbly suggest you to tell your reporters once again to check facts before starting writing stories. Personally I believe this  is particularly important for foreign corresponants working in China, where the Chinese language is first and foremost an obstacle to understanding things profoundly and even correctly. 

|Please accept my highest respects.

                                           Xiaofan SHI

                                          Former Xinhua reporter

                                     Currently Paris-based free lance writer