An association's scandalous 'photo finish'
- Source: Global Times
- [05:00 January 22 2010]
- Comments
By Wu Meng
The scandal in the Chinese Photographers' Association (CPA) is still raging.
Shi Baoxiu, vice chairperson of the Shaanxi Province Photographers' Association (SPA), said Thursday in a statement that she quit both the SPA and CPA because the water is too muddied.
Shi expressed her disappointment with the CPA, which said in an official document that the scandal had been capitalized upon by some people deliberately to destroy its reputation and attack the Party.
Three weeks ago, a report on the Internet first disclosed that four of the 10 CPA prize-winning pictures by Sang Yuzhu were stolen from other photographers.
Sang claimed that those four pictures were "co-taken" by him and two other photographers. And, subsequently, the CPA conducted an investigation and canceled Sang's award. But, it failed to take the logical next step and identify Sang's action as plagiarism. The CPA's decision has met with immediate criticism from the nation's photographers.
It is more than a simple matter of a prize being awarded to a false claimant. Some outspoken photographers have exposed that the CPA's activities are not properly supervised and the selection and award process lacks transparency. The association is both player and umpire.
This is not a problem facing photographers alone. Last year saw a number of high-profile scandals relating to other professional associations, too.
Last December, the Hunan Province Writers' Association was in the news because of a fight in its office between eminent novelist Zhang Yang and a woman employee. Zhang reportedly said that he was involved in combating corruption within the association.
Worse, it was reported Thursday that the police detained two former heads of the Chinese Football Association in the course of an investigation into matches being fixed.
It may be argued that the professional associations have become dens of corruption and misconduct. These organizations are supposed to support and protect their members, and uphold standards and ethics in their respective field.
But in China, they are semi-official bodies acting as an arm of government. They are vested with vast powers, yet not under supervision as government agencies should be. Instead of functioning as a professional body, some of these are run more as special interest groups.
What has happened and been reported may be the tip of an iceberg. It's high time the government and concerned sections of society acted to plug the loopholes in the regulating of professional associations.
To earn the respect of the public and society, these associations should show more honesty and stop playing such practical jokes on their own reputation.
Up to now, the CPA has resisted correcting its mistakes. The media has played an effective role in exposing the scandal, but eventually it falls on the government to fix the problems. Let's wait and see.
