The South China Morning Post (SCMP) has withdrawn an opinion piece after being unable to verify the writer’s credentials – the second such case since 2020.
Last Friday, the Hong Kong newspaper – owned by Chinese tech firm Alibaba – published an opinion piece by “Peter Sojka,” whose now-removed biography stated he was a fellow at the Slovak Academy of Sciences. His opinion piece was titled “Why the US needs to get Ukraine to swallow a truce with Russia.”
Bangkok-based journalist Tomasz Augustyniak said on Twitter, now X, that a reverse image search revealed that the headshot used in the bio was generated by artificial intelligence.
“Peter Sojka – according to his made up bio a fellow at the Slovak Academy of Sciences – argued that the US should convince Ukraine to sign truce with Russia. That would align with Beijing’s interests. But no such person works at the Academy and nobody in Bratislava recognizes him,” he said.
Katarína Gáliková of the Slovak Academy of Sciences’ media department told HKFP on Tuesday: “To our knowledge there is no Peter Sojka employed at Slovak Academy of Sciences and we found no record about such person.”
By Tuesday, the column had been withdrawn on the SCMP website and the writer’s bio had been replaced with a notice reading: “The article by this author has been withdrawn as we have been unable to independently verify the author’s credentials.”
In July 2020, SCMP pulled op-eds from “Lin Nguyen,” replacing her bio with a statement that the newspaper was “unable to verify the authenticity of the author.” Five columns were deleted, including one which urged Hong Kong protesters to “stay at home” during the extradition bill protests and unrest in 2019.
Also in place of her bio, the SCMP said it was “reviewing” its policies for contributors.
‘Missing’ reporters
Last week, the SCMP said one of its journalists was “safe,” after international media and press freedom groups reported she had gone missing after attending a security forum in Beijing.
Press freedom group Article 19 criticised the paper for threatening legal action against HKFP over covering the widely-reported story. “‘That HKFP has been singled out with the threat of legal action has all the hallmarks of arbitrary litigation to silence and intimidate a free press performing its function as a public watchdog,” said Asia Digital Programme Manager Michael Caster.
“Rather than threatening legal action, South China Morning Post should be grateful for the outpouring of support and solidarity for its journalist.’”
Citing sources, Nikkei and Al Jazeera reported that Minnie Chan was the second reporter to become unreachable in mainland China in recent years. Separately, in 2020, Alibaba founder Jack Ma disappeared from public view for nearly three months after he questioned China’s regulators.
HKFP has contacted the SCMP for comment.
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