As he looked at the deputy editor before him, he even suspected she’d been sent by a rival station specifically to sabotage them.

Traditional television stations’ profitability hadn’t been very good for years, and many local stations were plotting transformations. They had been impacted by new media and the like. Many local stations had resorted to using "shocking" titles to gain traffic. It was actually an act of desperation. If they stuck to the old ways, they simply couldn’t attract traffic. Those netizens... they would completely turn to those self-media platforms.

Moreover, they had also been continuously trying to launch special reports, setting KPIs for traffic acquisition.

What he hadn’t expected was... this group of people below had actually set their sights on Qin Mu.

Indeed, Qin Mu had been quite popular recently. With the lawsuit against fifteen thousand people across the internet, Qin Mu had become well-known in Jin City. Even the old man who fell asleep in court... had gained quite a bit of fame. Launching a live broadcast at this time would absolutely make a killing. Producing a report on Qin Mu wasn’t actually unreasonable.

But at the very least, Qin Mu’s own consent should have been sought. So many glaring examples lay before them. Such blatant infringement was no different from courting death.

"I... I just... I really don’t dare..." the deputy editor said, her head lowered, still trying to explain herself. She indicated that they hadn’t dared to interview Qin Mu directly. More to the point, they were actually worried that Qin Mu would refuse. Once Qin Mu refused, it would mean their special report was all for nothing. After weighing the situation, she had decided not to seek out Qin Mu at all and chose to report on some insignificant information that did not involve personal privacy.

"You don’t dare? You don’t dare to approach Qin Mu, but you dare to let the entire television station bear the risk?" Hearing this, the station manager stared intently at her, his face growing increasingly stern.

The deputy editor swallowed hard and didn’t dare argue further. She could only shrink back timidly, her head bowed, no longer speaking.

The station manager looked at her coldly for a good ten seconds before he finally calmed down. Taking a deep breath, he said gravely, "Our immediate priority is to apologize and clarify."

Facing Qin Mu, he decisively chose to bow his head, not wanting to escalate the situation. If it were someone else... their station would have many remedial measures at this time, such as post-event compensation, negotiations, and so on. But this time, the person they were dealing with was Qin Mu, and Qin Mu was unlikely to compromise with them. To put it bluntly, given the assets Qin Mu had disclosed so far, he really wouldn’t care about the money they offered in negotiations.

"Station manager, I think... there’s no need for that, right?"

At that moment, the editor-in-chief, who had been silent until now, stood up and said with a frown, "Our station simply released an article. Even though it included an interview video and content, revealing some private details, we could totally angle this towards public welfare."

"Let’s say... this program is the latest legal education section our station has launched. It’s mainly aimed at promoting compliance with laws and regulations, helping the general public learn about these legal issues."

Upon hearing this, the station manager paused, momentarily stunned. The words "public welfare program"... he instantly understood.

Social public welfare institutions are non-profit organizations established to serve the public interest by providing public goods and services to society. According to the functional characteristics of social public welfare institutions, they are classified into two types: Type I and Type II.

And their television station... belonged to the second type of public welfare.

The biggest difference between the two types of public welfare is that the first type is directly under the state, entirely funded by the government budget, with personnel appointed by the government. The second type, however, operated on a smaller scale, aimed for self-sufficiency, received government funding to cover deficits, and recruited its personnel freely.

Regardless, their television station had one crucial characteristic: its public welfare nature! All the programs they produced could be linked to public welfare.

And according to the Civil Code, there were two situations where one could use another person’s rights, such as image rights and privacy rights, without their permission. The first was for news reporting, where it was unavoidable to create, use, and publicly display the image of the person involved. The second was for upholding public interest or the legitimate rights of the person whose image was used, through other acts of creating, using, or publicly displaying their image.

For example, many live court broadcasts weren’t pixelated. For suspects who had not yet been deprived of their political rights, this inevitably constituted an infringement. But this fell under news reporting—a functional live broadcast—and could be aired without the consent of the parties involved.

"You’re saying... use the public welfare angle to respond to Qin Mu?" the station manager thought about it and couldn’t help but ask.

The editor-in-chief nodded. "If we use this reason, he’ll have no way to counter us, and our station won’t have to apologize publicly."

Upon hearing this, the station manager fell silent, seriously considering the feasibility of this strategy.

In fact, many interviews produced by television stations were often broadcast without the consent of the subjects. But most ordinary people considered it an honor to be on TV. They were usually too happy about being on TV to care about consent.

But the person they were dealing with this time was Qin Mu. Qin Mu, upon finding out, had immediately called, demanding they remove the content and apologize.

And as the head of the television station, he was fully aware of how damaging an apology would be. It would severely harm the television station’s image. This was an intangible loss!

So, if he could avoid apologizing, he absolutely would.