Chinese TV journalist detained for cardboard-in-buns flap

Nation's Restaurant News,  July 30, 2007  by Mark Brandau

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BEIJING -- Note to all picky patrons and aspiring food writers: When criticizing a restaurant's food for tasting like cardboard, be sure to have the facts to back it up, lest you end up like one TV show host in this Chinese city.

According to the Reuters news wire service, Beijing police have detained a reporter for allegedly fabricating a report of an unlicensed vendor selling steamed buns stuffed with cardboard. The report, directed by Beijing TV and broadcast by state-run China Central Television, said a food vendor in eastern Beijing had sold dumplings that contained cardboard soaked in caustic soda--a poisonous chemical--and flavored with pork fat.

A subsequent citywide inspection of steamed-bun vendors found no "cardboard buns" the China Daily said. According to that newspaper, police discovered that a Beijing TV employee with the surname Zi allegedly made up the story to garner "higher audience ratings."

"Zi had provided all the cardboard and asked the vendor to soak it," the paper quoted a government notice as saying.

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