The editorial board of the official Communist Party online newspaper has been reprimanded for incorrectly using a foreign-sourced article entitled “Chinese navy maneuvers in the East Sea”.

Accordingly, the chief editor – Dao Duy Quat (photo) – and the editorial board of the on-line newspaper have been reprimanded for violating Decision 157 of the Party Central Committee’s Secretariat on the political and ideological orientations in information published by the media.

The department also asked the chief editor to impose the toughest punishment on the sub-editor and technician who directly selected and published the article.

Previously, the Ministry of Information and Communications’ inspectorate decided to fine the Communist Party online newspaper 30 million dong for the violation.

“This is an occupational accident”: Editor Dao Duy Quat

Discussing the reprimand with a reporter from Tuoi Tre newspaper, Chief Editor Dao Duy Quat accepted responsibility for what he called an “occupational accident.” Quat said that the typing staff worked overtime that day and he himself was very tired. An important marginal edit by a sub-editor was inadvertently omitted.

“We had opened a column entitled “Vietnam’s Sea and Islands” with articles relating to Vietnam’s sovereignty over the Hoang Sa and Truong Sa (Paracel and Spratly) archipelagos. The article in question, taken from a Chinese newspaper, was posted to warn about China’s activity and plans, and in one place, discussing the Chinese Navy’s maneuvers, it quoted some words by the deputy commander of China’s Southern Fleet.

“Our sub-editor had penned several words into the margin that made it clear that what the Chinese officer stated was a perversion of the true facts, but our typist overlooked these words, so the information in the article gave a wrong impression to readers.”

VietNamNet/NLD/TT