(Ecns.cn) -- Fang Hongjin, a founder of CCTV's prime time news review program Jiaodian Fangtan, or "Focus Interview," and five time winner of China's top media prize, was held in custody for contract fraud in 2009.
According to initial investigation, Fang volunteered to provide TV advertisement service for an instant noodle company in Xingtai in 2006. The advertisement company Fang invested in, however, failed to fulfill the bilateral one-million yuan contract.
The prosecutor withdrew the case for lack of evidence on September 13 of this year.
Despite the positive legal outcome, the waiting must have been a long, suffering nightmare for Fang.
Recently, Beijing News had an exclusive interview with Fang on the "mischief" God has played on him and his reflections on all of these occurrences.
A bygone age
After graduating from China's top universities Zhongshan and Nankai and then gaining eight years of teaching and managing experience, Fang Hongjin entered the TV media sphere in 1991.
Since 1994, he held vital positions in CCTV's influential news programs Oriental Horizon and Focus Interview until he joined the newly-founded Dragon TV in Shanghai as the producer-in-chief in 2003.
After his contract with Dragon TV ended in 2006, Fang started an advertising company. It never occurred to him that in no more than three years, his name would be associated with the title of notorious suspected "swindler."
Fang explained how after an investigation into his company started in mid-2008, "There were even some strangers pointing at me and saying that I was a fraud when I walked down the street."
On October 4, 2009 when he was put in jail on the border between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, Fang said "my mind was totally blank."
"On the first evening when I was jailed, Focus Interview was on TV. I sat in the chair, watching my former colleague Jing Yidan and my familiar program. It felt like a generation ago."
