CNN Received a Copy of Boat Collision Tape Days Before YouTube Leak (And Threw It Away)
The coast guard officer who leaked the recent footage of Chinese trawler ramming Japanese patrol boats near the Senkaku Islands has told investigators that he first sent the video to CNN:
The 43-year-old navigator, assigned to the Kobe Coast Guard Office, told investigators he decided to post the footage on YouTube after the U.S. news broadcaster didn’t air it, according to the sources.
He said he sent an envelope containing an SD card containing the footage to CNN’s bureau in Minato Ward immediately before releasing the footage on the Internet site on Nov. 4, the sources said.
A CNN public relations official declined comment.
But the sources said CNN disposed of the card without watching the footage, suspecting it might be infected with a virus.
The coast guardsman did not include in the envelope an explanation of what was on the digital storage card, according to the sources.
The Yomiuri reports that the man mailed the memory card to CNN in late October or early November. The YouTube video was uploaded on November 4th. Had CNN released the footage, and had the man taken precautions to remove fingerprints or other evidence from the package, it is possible that he would have never been caught. Uploading it from a net cafe with surveillance cameras and customer records was probably riskier.
It seems pretty ridiculous that they wouldn’t even bother to run a simple virus scan on the card and check its contents before throwing it in the garbage. But, then again, when you think about all of the low quality Japan news coverage from CNN, I suppose it isn’t surprising that their staff would be too lazy to check the contents of a mysterious memory card.
[hat tip to jikuu]
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