The Reuters news agency has withdrawn a video showing an exchange between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the subject of organ transplants and living to 150 years, after Chinese state media withdrew legal permission to use the footage and demanded its removal.
A written request from China Central Television’s (CCTV) legal team said Reuters exceeded the usage terms of its agreement and criticised the “editorial treatment applied to this material”, prompting the news agency to remove the footage from its website on Friday.
Putin and Xi were heard, in an exchange that was picked up live by a microphone on Wednesday, discussing organ transplants and the possibility of humans living to 150 years as they walked together in Beijing alongside North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
“Biotechnology is continuously developing. Human organs can be continuously transplanted. The longer you live, the younger you become, and [you can] even achieve immortality,” Putin’s interpreter said in Chinese as the Russian leader and Xi approached Tiananmen Square’s rostrum.
Xi responded: “Some predict that in this century humans may live to 150 years old.”
The three leaders were leading a delegation of more than two dozen foreign officials to a massive military parade in the Chinese capital marking 80 years since the end of World War II.
The footage with the exchange between Putin and Xi, filmed and licensed by CCTV, was edited by Reuters into a four-minute video that was distributed to more than 1,000 global media clients.
The unusually candid exchange between the major world leaders was widely shared by broadcasters and on social media globally.
The letter, written by CCTV’s legal supervisor, said Reuters’ “editorial treatment” of the material “resulted in a clear misrepresentation of the facts and statements contained within the licensed feed”.
The letter did not provide details on what CCTV specifically objected to.
Reuters removed the video from its website and issued a “kill” order to its clients, explaining that it did so as it no longer held legal permission to publish the copyrighted material.
The news agency denied any wrongdoing, however, saying it stands by “the accuracy of what we published”.
“We have carefully reviewed the published footage, and we have found no reason to believe Reuters’ longstanding commitment to accurate, unbiased journalism has been compromised,” it said.
