[UPDATE: My commentary on the CBS segment can be found here.]
On Sunday night, the CBS News program 60 Minutes will air “Following the Trail of Toxic E-Waste,” in which reporter Scott Pelley and his camera crew are “roughed up” by individuals guarding an e-scrap processing workshop in Guiyu. According to the advanced press issued by CBS:
… the experience was almost as hazardous for the 60 Minutes team as working with the the toxic material is for poor Chinese workers.
I haven’t seen the segment, so I’ll avoid a rush to judgment on the journo-narcissism that might have inspired that remark.
However, since I’ve now received in excess of ten emails (ten is my threshold) inquiring into whether the “roughing up” received by the CBS crew is related to the alleged kidnapping of a British scrap trader by a Ningbo scrap processor (first reported on Shanghai Scrap last week), allow me to address that:
It’s not.
The Ningbo incident is primarily related to the recent, dramatic decline in the international market prices of scrap metals (more on that, soon). It would have been unthinkable in an “up” market, even as recently as mid-July. In contrast, the Guiyu “rough up” would have happened regardless of market conditions. Guiyu Thugs have been beating up journalists and environmentalists for years.
I’ll have more to say about 60 Minutes on Tuesday, after the program airs and I’ve taken care of an unrelated deadline.