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Badvocacy at the epicenter in China

In the wake of the massive earthquake that devastated parts of western China, another powerful force — badvocacy — has been responsible for wrecking reputations.

We’ve all heard the story of schools that collapsed. But the most destructive case of badvocacy comes from a school that remained intact.

Students in Dujiangyan, 100 km from the epicenter, emerged from their school without a scratch. But the student’s teacher, surnamed Fan, made an ill-fated escape minutes before them. As soon as the ground started shaking, Teacher Fan had ran out of the classroom screaming “earthquake,” leaving his middle-school pupils paralyzed at their desks.

Then came the aftershocks.

As millions of Chinese went online for the latest quake coverage, the tale of Teacher Fan spread across the Internet — where netizens gave him the nickname “Runner Fan.”

In response to an online jury of his peers, Runner Fan wrote on popular Chinese BBS, Tianya, that neither his students nor his mother merited self-sacrifice, only his own daughter. Netizens, and presumably his mother, were outraged.

That Runner Fan will receive a fair trial by China’s netizens is doubtful. He probably did not break any laws — especially the law of evolution — by ensuring his own survival. But his cowardice and unconvincing comeback can teach students of advocacy (and badvocacy) something about the “cloud of witnesses” that now surround us.

Someone once told me that integrity is doing the right thing when no one is watching. But in the Internet age, integrity is obsolete. With everyone logging on, there’s always someone watching. And the sharing abilities of social networks, blogs and BBS means that any tale — true of false — can have a destructive ripple effect.

How one responds that will determine the damage.