VOA Chinese, Aug. 23, 2010.
http://www1.voanews.com/chinese/news/20100823_PRIZE-101289939.html
("中国新闻摄影'金镜头'组委会原先计划将于8月23日凌晨在网上公布获奖照片'挟尸要
价'是否造假的调查结果。但时至星期一下午，该网站仍然没有给出最后的结果，只是
在一份声明中说，调查小组到达荆州事发地点，对当事人进行了采访，但是'基于情况
的复杂性，截至目前为止，调查资料还在核实整理中。'”)
MY comment:
(a) 长江大学宣传部长李玉泉的博客网址：http://cjdxlyq.blog.sohu.com/ 和http://blog.sina.com.cn/cjdxlyq。
李玉泉，男，长江大学教授，硕士研究生导师。中国传媒大学研究员；荆州市人民政府
咨询委员。
(b) 长江大学 Yangtze University (湖北省荆州市)
http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh/%E9%95%BF%E6%B1%9F%E5%A4%A7%E5%AD%A6
(c) I have never been to China. China is opaque, and Chinese offcialdom lies.
However, there must be good, honest officials somewhere.
I can not tell if the photographer lies.
But in my view, there is nothing wrong even if fishermen demanded
compensation for their efforts. Preferably it was done before they tried.
It is not easy to recover a body from waters. In Massachusetts people get
drowned in ponds or along sea coast. Police (city, town or state; depending
on whose jurisdiction it is) in the former and coast guard (an agency of
federal government) in the latter take action to save or retrieve the body
or bodies. Sometimes it takes divers in gear more than a day to find and
bring back the body. It is free presumably.
I do not know why in this case police did not get involved in retrieving
bodies when three college students were drowned. Fishermen did. They should
be paid. The money they allegedly demanded and received, RMB 3,600, is not
much.
I also can not imagine the fishermen could have taken bodies as bargaining
chip for compensation. Local police would intervene, wouldn't it?
(1) It is hard for an outsider like me to comprehend why the police did not recover the bodies, but that instead classmates and professors had to negotiate with private parties in the first place (which appears to be routine locally at least).
(2) The web site of 人民摄影
http://www.peoplephoto.com/
I only wish to say that one sentence is improbable, that "大约过了三十分钟，第一具遗体浮出水面." Paragraph 2, under section 二.
Lecture Notes: Bodies from Water. Department of Forensic Medicine, University of Dundee, undated.
http://www.dundee.ac.uk/forensicmedicine/notes/water.pdf
(page11/13: Sinking, Putrfaction and Refloating)
My comment: Drowning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drowning
(section 6 Epidemiology; caption of a world map: Disability-adjusted life year for drowning per 100,000 inhabitants in 2004)