On June 18, CCTV, the main TV station run by the Chinese regime, aired an interview on its popular "In Focus" program. An interviewee, a college student named Gao Ye, accused Google of enabling students to find pornographic websites. He said that his classmate was infatuated with porn sites and it has caused quite a distraction in his life. However, some viewers investigated the situation and found that Gao was actually an intern at CCTV working on the "In Focus" program.
The story was reported by Southern Metropolis News. The report said that viewers found that Gao Ye was a student from Wuhan, Hubei province. He has a summer internship with the Second Reporters' Group of CCTV. Gao's blog on sina.com also said that he was doing an internship at CCTV. Furthermore, a Southern Metropolis News reporter received confirmation from a staff at "In Focus" that Gao was an intern there.
Members of the Chinese public have published opinions on the Internet criticizing CCTV for making fake news. A person who portrayed himself as Gao Ye made an online statement that said, "I was only saying what the program director told me to."
Recently, CCTV was also forced to apologize for using old news footage in its nightly news. On June 7, in a news report about the national college entrance exam, viewers saw in the background a bus with a banner that read, "63 days until the 2008 Olympics." That evening, Internet users published articles criticizing CCTV of violating news reporting principles and making fake news. The CCTV published an apology on June 9 on its international edition's website.
