"CNN has finally apologized!" - the online edition of People's Daily proclaimed yesterday.

Surprised by this news, I read the original English-language letter of "apology" CNN handed to a local law firm in the United States on May 6. My conclusion: neither CNN nor Jack Cafferty has apologized, although they play with the words "regret" and "sorry."

Here is what Jack Cafferty said about his April 9 "goons and thugs" defamation of the Chinese people:

"And the one thing I regret is that some Chinese citizens in China and Chinese-Americans in this country felt like maybe I was insulting them. And that was never my intention. And I am sorry for that ..."

This is no apology. This is ambivalence or evasion of responsibility. No one is so stupid as to believe that Cafferty's description of the Chinese as "goons and thugs" was not intentional humiliation and defamation. Anyone who used "goons and thugs" to describe a group of people did it with actual malice.

Read the code of ethics of the American Society of Professional Journalists:

1. Show good taste.

2. Avoid stereotyping by race, gender, age, religion, ethnicity, geography, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance or social status.

3. Admit mistakes quickly.

The author is a columnist from Shanghai Daily

(Shanghai Daily May 9, 2008)