Gawker: valleywag, shi tao

Jerry Yang's all upset over imprisoned Chinese dissidents

Nicholas Carlson — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:20:38 EST

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice goes to China next week. Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang is insisting she press for the release of Shi Tao, the Chinese dissident Yahoo helped to imprison. He wrote her a letter to say so. And Yahoo lawyer Michael Samway published it on Yahoo's corporate blog. Which isn't a distasteful public-relations gimmick at all! Especially when you consider that the terms of a settlement with Shi Tao's family requires Yang to lobby for his release. Here's the letter:

Click to expand the image.

Shamed Yahoo settles with Chinese journalists

Jordan Golson — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 16:20:49 EST

Less than a week after Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang was bitchslapped on Capitol Hill, his company has settled with the families of Chinese writers who were jailed in China. Shi Tao and Wang Xiaoning were imprisoned based partly on documents Yahoo says it was "legally required" to hand over. Settlement terms were not disclosed. Yahoo will start a fund to provide "humanitarian relief" to dissidents and their families. Reportedly, one part of the settlement stipulates that Yahoo must lobby the Chinese government to release the two journalists. Right. Like Yahoo's boys in Beijing will have more success swaying Communist hardliners than Yahoo's D.C. reps had in avoiding this embarrassing debacle in the first place.

Happy birthday, moral pygmy!

Tim Faulkner — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 17:45:42 EST

Bad enough that Michael Callahan, Yahoo's top lawyer, and Jerry Yang, the company's CEO and cofounder were raked over the coals today by a House committee for the company's role in the imprisonment of Chinese journalist Shi Tao. But Yang suffered the additional indignity of getting the Congressional tongue-lashing on his 39th birthday. Happy birthday, Jerry! Turning 40's going to look easy by comparison.

Yang had to withstand more than an hour of condemnation from members of Congress, chiefly Tom Lantos of California who led the session, before even having a chance to speak. Yang was then forced to bow to Shi Tao's mother who was in the front row and in Lantos's words "beg forgiveness." Committee members unleashed their rhetoric, calling Yahoo's actions "spineless." Congressman Lantos went so far as to personally indict the two executives:

Morally you are pygmies... An appallingly disappointing performance. I think we cannot begin to tell you how disappointing Mr. Yang's and your performance was.

But I bet Yang got his wish — for this whole ordeal to be over.

(Photo from Wikimedia Commons)