In an unusual action that quickly sparked debate online, Chinese authorities showed a live broadcast Friday of four foreign drug smugglers in their last hours before execution for killing 13 fishermen.
A shocking and apparently unprecedented form of reality TV for China, the program on state-run television featured all the staples of modern current events coverage — experts, pundits, instant analysis.
It cut away as the convicted men were being led from their prison cells, hands tied up with rope, toward their lethal injections.