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CNN chief Mr Walton (next picture) recently sent a letter to the Chinese Embassy in the US, following the comment last month by Mr Cafferty (above).
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Beijing - CNN's apology for offending comments about the Chinese people is not sincere enough and shows no readiness to understand the Chinese position on issues concerning them, said state media and academics.
China's official Xinhua news agency reported on Thursday that CNN president Jim Walton had recently sent a letter to the Chinese Embassy in the United States to apologise for remarks made by commentator Jack Cafferty on an April9 broadcast, in which he called the Chinese people a 'bunch of goons and thugs'.
But China's Global Times, a newspaper for international news, said a search on the CNN website had not yielded any news regarding Mr Walton's apology, nor a full reproduction of his letter.
'The Western media had reported extensively on the Cafferty comments but when news of the apology broke, it seemed most of their much-lauded news hounds had overlooked it,' the Global Times commented yesterday.
The newspaper added that by Friday morning, only one Western agency, Agence France-Presse, had reported on the apology. It appeared Bloomberg was the only other one that had done so by yesterday.
A researcher mastering in US studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, one of China's top think-tanks, told the Global Times that to correct all negative influences, the apology should be broadcast over CNN and in the same time slot in which Mr Cafferty's comments were made.
The scholar declined to be named.
'Making such an apology does not show CNN would from now on be at one with the Chinese people on issues concerning them,' said Professor Li Xiguang, director of the international media research centre at Qinghua University in Beijing.
CNN is flawed in its basic values and will likely continue making similar mistakes, said Prof Li.
A 'mature' way to apologise would be to show the letter personally to the Chinese people. Anything short of that makes it difficult to see the situation as '(CNN) having learnt its mistake and wanting to make amends'.
Prof Li also questioned why the US-based network had chosen to make its apology just when China was engrossed in dealing with the Sichuan earthquake.
'Most importantly, we want to see action, not just an apology,' stressed Prof Li.
Following Mr Cafferty's comments, China and Chinese people across the world demanded an apology for what they saw as 'vile' remarks.
In his letter last week, Mr Walton said: 'On behalf of CNN, I'd like to apologise to the Chinese people for that...CNN has the highest respect for Chinese people around the world and we have no doubt that there was genuine offence felt by them over the Jack Cafferty commentary.'
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