Before

 

China TV Network Apologizes for Fire

By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: February 10, 2009

 

BEIJING — As the sun rose on Tuesday, throngs of Beijing residents flocked to the headquarters of China’s national television network hoping to catch sight of the futuristic steel behemoth that had been consumed by flames the previous night. The blaze, ignited by an errant firework set off on the final night of the lunar new year, destroyed a luxury hotel and theater, left one firefighter dead and injured six others.

 

Investigators have placed the blame on China Central Television, whose employees defied the police by staging their illegal pyrotechnics too close to the unfinished complex. In a statement posted on its Web site, the network apologized for the incident, saying it was deeply grieved “for the severe damage the fire caused to the country’s property.”

 

Despite the apology, a rare gesture of contrition by the powerful state-owned network, Beijing residents who came to see the smoking shell of architect Rem Koolhaas’s Mandarin Oriental Hotel had harder time finding images of the blaze on the Internet in China, on television or in the city’s newspapers.

 

There were no pictures on the front page of The Beijing News. The home page of Xinhua, the official news agency, featured a photo from another tragedy: a stampede in South Korea that left four people dead. Throughout the morning, CCTV’s brief bulletins about the blaze omitted footage of the burning tower.

 

Even before the flames had been extinguished early Tuesday, pcitures of the burning hotel had been removed from the country’s main Internet portals. By afternoon, the story had been largely buried.

 

A directive sent out by propaganda officials made it clear that the authorities were eager to reduce public attention to the blaze, a colossal embarrassment that many people believe augurs poorly for the new year. “No photos, no video clips, no in-depth reports,” read the memo, which instructed all media outlets to use only Xinhua’s dispatches. “The news should be put on news areas only and the comments posting areas should be closed.”

 

The Beijing Youth Daily’s report, for one, was anchored by a list of the officials who rushed to the scene, including the mayor of Beijing, the head of CCTV and the director of the Communist Party’s propaganda department. The officials, the article noted, bravely directed the efforts of 16 firefighting squads.

 

If the government was hoping to deflect attention from the calamity, it was only partly successful. In the age of the Internet, they could not entirely shut down the coverage. In fact, many bloggers boasted that it was ordinary citizens, armed with cell phone cameras and camcorders, who provided the first images and accounts shortly after the fire began.

 

Photographs were traded through texting and e-mail. One home video widely circulated on the Web showed how the fire began after the shell of a firework landed on the hotel roof.

 

Wang Xiaofeng, a popular blogger, could not help but note that CCTV employees had accidentally created one of the biggest stories of the year and then failed to cover it. “They didn’t feel the urgency to report the news even though the fire was up to their eyebrows,” he wrote. “In this case of breaking news, the official media has been defeated by the citizen media.”

 

Even if they lamented the loss of life, other bloggers were almost gleeful over the network’s monumental misfortune. Some said they were happy to see the demise of a building that had come to symbolize the government’s Olympian extravagance. Others noted with self-satisfaction that the charred structure was also slated to house recording studios for CCTV.

“This tragedy has become a comedy on the Internet,” said a writer who called himself Foxshuo. “This is not a vulgarity but the ventilation of people’s emotion. It’s the same as seeing a bully fall down.”

 

With tongue-in-cheek humor, another writer, Chaindrive tried to find the silver lining in the fire. The rebuilding effort, he said, would mean more jobs for unemployed migrants, more money spent on construction materials and a boost to the ailing economy.

 

“Businesses will have new customers and our government officials will have new opportunities to take bribes,” he wrote. “To make up the loss, we taxpayers will pay more, but our GDP will go up and society will move forward in harmony.”

 

Huang Yuanxi contributed research.

 

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After

 

BEIJING — China’s national television network on Tuesday blamed an illegal fireworks display by its employees for igniting a blaze that destroyed a futuristic luxury hotel and theater here.

 

In a statement posted on its Web site, the network, China Central Television, said the illegal pyrotechnics on Monday, the final night of the Lunar New Year celebrations, were staged too close to the unfinished Mandarin Oriental Hotel, which is part of the network’s headquarters complex. The network apologized for “the severe damage the fire caused to the country’s property.”

 

Xinhua, the official news agency, reported Tuesday that one firefighter had died from smoke inhalation and that six firefighters and a construction worker had been injured.

The apology was a rare gesture of contrition by the powerful state-owned network.

 

While the cause of the fire seemed clear, many questions remained about why a building being constructed with fireproof materials was so quickly and thoroughly engulfed by flames.

 

During a news conference on Tuesday, Luo Yuan, a spokesman for the Beijing Municipal Fire Brigade, said strong winds, toxic fumes and a lack of working sprinklers hampered efforts to extinguish the fire, which began on the building’s roof and spread to the lower floors.

 

After examining photographs of the blaze, Jonathan Barnett, a fire protection engineer in New York who has studied numerous skyscraper fires, said it appeared that the flames were fed by insulating foam panels along the facade. Although such material is combustible, in a finished building the foam is sandwiched between fireproof materials like wall board and glass.

 

“It may have been an issue of the construction not being complete,” Mr. Barnett said.

 

Jill Kluge, a spokeswoman for the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, said company investigators had yet to be allowed on the site. Messages left at the offices of Rem Koolhaas and Arup, an engineering firm involved in the building’s construction, were not answered on Tuesday.

 

Beijing residents who wanted to see the smoking shell of the hotel had a harder time on Tuesday finding images of the fire on the Internet, on television or in the city’s newspapers.

 

There were no pictures on the front page of The Beijing News. On Tuesday morning, the home page of Xinhua featured a photo from another event: a stampede in South Korea that left four people dead. Throughout the day, CCTV’s brief bulletins about the blaze omitted images of the burning tower. By evening, the newscast skipped the story entirely.

 

Even before the flames had been put out early Tuesday, pictures of the burning hotel had been removed from most of the main Internet portals serving China. In the afternoon, the story had been largely buried, although by the evening, news of the fire was accessible on the Xinhua and CCTV Web sites.

 

The network’s unusual public apology and the media’s skittish approach to covering the fire suggested that the authorities were struggling with how to deal with a delicate event in the age of cellphone cameras and YouTube.

 

A directive sent out by propaganda officials, which found its way to the Internet after it was leaked, made it clear that the authorities were eager to reduce public attention to the blaze, a colossal embarrassment that many people believe augurs poorly for the new year. “No photos, no video clips, no in-depth reports,” read the memo, which instructed all media outlets to use only Xinhua dispatches. “The news should be put on news areas only, and the comments posting areas should be closed.”

 

The Beijing Youth Daily’s report, for one, was anchored by a list of the officials who rushed to the scene, including the mayor of Beijing, the head of CCTV and the director of the Communist Party’s propaganda department.

 

The government could not entirely shut down coverage. In fact, many bloggers boasted that it was citizens, armed with cellphone cameras and camcorders, who provided the first images and accounts shortly after the fire began.

 

Photos were traded by means of cellphones and e-mail messages. One video circulated on the Internet showed how the fire began after a shell from the fireworks landed on the hotel roof.

Wang Xiaofeng, a popular blogger, could not help noting that CCTV employees had accidentally created one of the biggest stories of the year and then failed to cover it. “They didn’t feel the urgency to report the news, even though the fire was up to their eyebrows,” he wrote. “In this case of breaking news, the official media has been defeated by the citizen media.”

 

Even if they lamented the death of a firefighter, other bloggers were almost gleeful over the network’s misfortune. Some said they were happy to see the demise of a building that had come to symbolize the government’s Olympian extravagance. Others noted with self-satisfaction that the charred structure was also intended to house recording studios for CCTV.

With tongue-in-cheek humor, another writer, Chaindrive, tried to find a silver lining in the fire. The rebuilding effort, he said, would mean more jobs for unemployed migrants, more money spent on construction materials and a lift for the economy.

 

“Businesses will have new customers and our government officials will have new opportunities to take bribes,” he wrote. “To make up the loss, we taxpayers will pay more, but our G.D.P. will go up and society will move forward in harmony.”

 

Huang Yuanxi contributed research.