China Daily has this story on Page 1 today, and it comes down clearly on the side of the journalists.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-08/29/content_676336.htm

It starts off: "A leading Chinese financial newspaper has said that it is fully behind two of its journalists who have been sued for 30 million yuan...."

It is quite unusual for the paper to be so firmly in support of journalists. I think the difference in this case is that the Shenzhen gov't hasn't actually got itself fully involved, as Foxconn's attempts to intimidate the journalists have no legal basis:

"Yang Baiguo, the newspaper's spokesman, told China Daily that neither of the journalists had received any subpoenas or summons from the court."

And this is because:

"Xu Xun, legal consultant of China National Radio said the Chinese Supreme Court made a ruling in 1993 stating that individual reporters cannot be named as defendants in such lawsuits, and only their news organizations can."

I suspect this story still has a couple of twists in its tale yet though.

The Chinese website Sohu.com also released a feature report on this.

See:http://news.sohu.com/s2006/hhsp/

googling ipod china revealed the original Mail article (the content of which was hardly unbelievable) and a couple of online IT news links:

http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=22072
http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/5361/53/

I certainly was relieved to read that Apple has exonerated Foxconn. Apple's report found that employees making iPods were paid at or above "the minimum wage". It was especially comforting to see this, though I am curious what exactly the "minimum wage" is down there in Shenzhen. Maybe Steve Jobs knows.

Baru, if you scroll down the comments following teh sina news,you will find a number of people who identify themselves as "former employees" of foxconn or "insiders" claim that the Apple report was fabricated with the influence of "great foxconn PR".

another observation. there were a few similar cases before and the public sentiment was unanimously on the side the weak and oppressed, just like this one. however, results occasionally turned out to be on the opposite side of the public sentiment and expectation. it's a concern, at least for me, that there are so little diversified and rational voices among the public and professionals in front of similar cases.

Why is it when Apple seeks to defend its interests, it is described as "muzzling the press"?

Apple has the legal right to seek remedy, whether what it had been doing is right or wrong, moral or otherwise. Until the evidence is clearer, none of us should come to a judgement.

And Danwei serves no one by using this headline.

"there are so little diversified and rational voices among the public and professionals in front of" the Ipod case because the public so far hasn't been able to even be exposed to sufficient "evidence". We only heard from the Mail, a member of the not-always-trustworthy Western media club and we heard from dycj, the only chinese media that got access to the factory. Then we heard from Foxconn who denounced the reports. How are we expected to make a judgement based on so limited media coverage. I think now the media has deviated to dwell on the lawsuit but overlooks the original "evidence" -- just how about the conditions over there in the ipod factory? More attempted should be taken to cover the factory conditions and pressure the Foxconn to redress the issue, if it did foul.

Btw, as far as I understand, Dae Woo is not a North Korean business.

i'm more interested in the sheer lack of journalistic integrity that goes into this and other news reports. conversations with anonymous netizens in online chat rooms seem to have become perfectly acceptable news sources. whatever next. news by rumour? oops, we have already reached that stage.

Curious Clarkson--to be sure, no one's accusing Apple here, it's specifically a case involving the company that manufactures iPods for Apple--a significant difference. I don't know much about journalism, but if these reporters have specific evidence supporting their report, isn't the burden to prove otherwise on Foxconn's shoulders? I think that's how it would be in court.