An insider from the magazine, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the legal section had been suspended due to “some pressure” that required the magazine to focus more on economic reports rather than legal affairs.

[...] The names of six reporters for the missing section were still printed in the latest issue, but two law-related reports – one about issues related to competition in the internet industry, and a small piece about a legal dispute between software company Qihoo 360 and internet giant Tencent – appeared in the economy section. A report about a lawsuit over chromium waste, brought by two environmental protection NGOs against a chemical firm in Yunnan , was put in the environment and technology section.

Liu Jing , a public relations officer for Caixin Media Group, told the South China Morning Post that the section had not been “cut” but that the magazine was simply making “normal adjustments” to the pages.

But some mainland journalists questioned whether the section’s absence may have been the result of a report on the deputy party secretary of Jilin province, Zhu Yanfeng. [Source]

See also Caixin’s English-language website and  past coverage of Caixin on CDT.

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Post tags: censorship, media censorship, press freedom, South China Morning Post, Zhu Yanfeng
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Wang Jiangsong, a philosophy professor at the China Institute of Industrial Relations in Beijing, said that on Tuesday he had seen the receipt of notice sent to his university’s leadership, instructing it to forbid lecturers from mentioning seven controversial issues in their classes.

The seven topics were freedom of the press, a civil society, civic rights, historical mistakes committed by the Communist Party, elite cronyism, and an independent judiciary.

“The purpose of this notice is just to tell you as a teacher to be a bit careful about what you’re saying,” he said. [Source]

The list was first circulated and widely distributed on Sina Weibo.

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Post tags: academic freedom, CCP history, press freedom, universities
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As Tea Leaf Nation writes, however, these new regulations have not yet had a significant impact on the daily work of the Chinese media, as two major recent stories demonstrate:

[..T]he rule was only two days old when it was ostensibly broken by hundreds of journalists and media outlets. When Ta Kung Pao, a Hong Kong paper closely affiliated with the Chinese government, published (and then retracted) a story about Xi Jinping taking a taxi ride in Beijing, it quick went viral and almost everyone in the journalist community on Weibo retweeted or commented on the story.

User @老辣陈香 asked, “What direction does the wind blow? Right after SARFT announced the strengthening of regulations on news editorial online activities, Ta Kung Pao broke the news that Xi Jinping had taken a ride in a taxi cab, and then domestic media were all reposting the news. In a word, the rule was brazenly violated – SARFT, what are you gonna do?”

[...] Two days later, a 7.0-point earthquake hit Sichuan province, immediately gathering full attention of the country’s media outlets. A picture of some journalists resting in a pigsty in the disaster zone was widely circulated in social media, with commentators praising their dedication to the profession. It soon emerged that the journalists in the photo were from Tencent.com, one of the major Internet portals in China, and thus lacked proper authorization to conduct journalistic endeavors. Sun Hai (@孙海) pointed out in his microblog: “Tencent news is covering earthquake with original reporting … The ‘journalist permit’ now exists in name only.” At least 10 reporters from Tencent were sent to cover the earthquake, according to Tencent’s feature page which carried the words, “we are on the front line.”

While the tenacity and determination of China’s journalists may weaken the effectiveness of these regulations, the fact that they are being implemented now shows the limitations of prospects for reform under Xi Jinping, according to Sinostand:

So what’s the deal? Are these new leaders reformers or not? Obviously, it’s complicated, but you can make a pretty good prediction on the likelihood of a given reform just by establishing whether it threatens the Party’s absolute control over who educates the public, who holds any kind of political power, and which way the guns would face in the event of an uprising (AKA – Propaganda, Personnel, People’s Liberation Army).

[...] In some ways it may seem like the new government is more amenable to opening up the press. Xi has vowed to go after both “the tigers and the flies” (top leaders and low officials who are corrupt) and hinted that this involves more freedom for the press and the online public. But there will always be a cage over the press. If that cage gets bigger (and there’s been no meaningful indication that it actually will), it will be carefully designed to let reporters roam only in areas that serve the Party’s self-preserving interests. These new directives suggest that that the vetting process for those even allowed to roam in that cage is getting stricter.

So this is what we’ll need to get used to. Virtually everything outside the Three Ps is eligible for reform, and that’s good news. There’s still a lot of room for making China a better place within those confines. But the Three Ps will absolutely remain under complete Party control, barring some massive national movement that presents a crisis even greater than Tiananmen.

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Post tags: foreign media, media conditions, media regulations, political reform, press freedom, weibo
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In October, when David Barboza published his Wen Jiabao investigation, Chinese officials lashed out, accusing him of having “ulterior motives” and trying to “smear” China. The New York Times website was blocked in China, and it was later revealed that the newspaper’s headquarters were subjected to a sustained hacking effort, which appeared to be aimed at acquiring Barboza’s personal communications. Bloomberg, which published an investigative report on the networks of power and wealth surrounding current President Xi Jinping, was also blocked in China and hacked following the report.

Following the Pulitzer announcement, Chinese authorities repeated the accusations against the New York Times. From AFP (via Economic Times):

The story, which was published in October last year, alleged close relatives of Wen have made billions of dollars in business dealings.

It provoked anger from authorities in China, who said it was part of a “smear” by “voices” opposed to the country’s development. The Times’ Chinese and English websites were subsequently blocked in China and remain inaccessible.

“Our position towards this issue is very clear. We believe the relevant report by the New York Times reporter is with ulterior motives,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular press briefing Tuesday.

Foreign reporters based in China know they face consequences from authorities if their reporting delves into areas the government does not want exposed. ChinaFile hosted a roundtable discussion titled, “Why Does China Mess with the Foreign Press?”, in which Columbia University’s Andrew Nathan discusses the widespread perception among China’s leaders that such investigative reports are sourced by players with their own political agenda:

A senior Chinese whose job it is to gather intelligence asked me both of these questions –why did the Times attack the premier and who gave them the information — and was incredulous when I answered that the wealth of Wen’s wife had been widely known for years, and this was a story just waiting to be written by a reporter with the skills to get the facts. He must have thought I was either naive or a liar. Such is the paranoia of the Chinese political class.

David Barboza has explained that all his reporting was based on scrupulous reading of public documents. Isabel Hilton points out that Chinese reporters often face harsher consequences for their investigative reports, and cites the case of Jiang Weiping, who was imprisoned for his reporting on Bo Xilai and other local officials in the 1990s.

Update: In a further crackdown on foreign media, the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television issued a directive this week forbidding journalists from “using news or informational products from foreign media or foreign websites” without prior permission.

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Post tags: Apple, david barboza, foreign correspondents, foreign media, Foxconn, jiang weiping, new york times, press freedom, Wen Jiabao
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Zhu Jianguo, an independent political commentator based in Shenzhen, said: “Hu is relatively stronger than [predecessor] Wang Yang as he responds to issues with actions instead of the fancy catchphrases that Wang was known for.

[...] ”He is more practical than Wang Yang. Instead of getting rid of small and medium-sized enterprises from Guangdong, Hu has adopted a more nurturing approach to moderate economic restructuring.”

[...] As party chief of Inner Mongolia for five years before moving to Guangdong, Hu increased economic growth, almost tripling the autonomous region’s per capita gross domestic product to more than US$10,000.

But Professor Niu Haipeng , of Renmin University, was quoted recently as saying that Hu Chunhua had established a worrying environmental record in the process, with growth achieved at the cost of environmental degradation and public health.

The article also mentions that during the Southern Weekly censorship incident this January, Hu, in order not to clash with his local propaganda comrades, failed to defend Guangdong’s tradition of relative press freedom.

See also “Little Hu” Thrown into the Guangdong Fire, via CDT.

See more on Hu Chunhua via CDT.

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Post tags: CCP 6th generation, Guangdong, Hu Chunhua, local officials, officials, press freedom, Southern Weekly, southern weekly protest 2013, Wang Yang
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Stone suggested that the incident was triggered by an on-air reference to the 1989 Tiananmen protests, but according to a Sky News spokeswoman, police told the pair that they had failed to properly display their press accreditation. They were later allowed to leave:

Interesting day in Beijing. Day time reporting on leadership changes. Evening spent talking to Police. They have released us now.

— Mark Stone (@Stone_SkyNews) March 15, 2013

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Post tags: foreign correspondents, NPC 2013, press freedom
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Decades of reform and opening have produced nearly 600 million Internet users, more than 400 million mobile users, and more than 300 million microbloggers. The amount of pure content and communication created and enjoyed hourly is staggering.

And much of that content would have been unimaginable in the very recent past: pointed comments, reporting, pictures, and jokes on corruption, food safety, transport conditions, dodgy deals, abuse of authority, and scores of other challenging topics.

Local newspapers and magazines try to push the limits in reporting and editing and even commentary. Foreign reports on China reverberate internally like never before, becoming a part of the domestic debate.

[...]

So there has been huge, obvious, and palpable progress. And yet, like an electrified fence around a yard, evidence of the limits around tolerance and freedom is there, too, ominously looming.

The report includes chapters on challenges faced by journalists in traditional media; on the rise of online media and weibo (written by me), and on the Chinese government’s exportation of online censorship tools and practices. It also includes a video by the New York Times’ Jonah Kessel which profiles journalist Liu Jianfeng, as well as cartoons by Crazy Crab of Hexie Farm and an interactive timeline which retraces how the Bo Xilai scandal was revealed. The full report is available in Chinese as a PDF.

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Post tags: journalists, media conditions, online public opinion, press freedom, weibo
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CCTV anchor Bai Yansong is pushing for press freedom. (@华创传媒老薄)

From the Censorship Vault features previously untranslated censorship instructions from the archives of the CDT series Directives from the Ministry of Truth (真理部指令).

Zhejiang Propaganda Department: Do not report, comment on, or reprint the Beijing News story on Bai Yansong‘s views on legislation. The website of the Suzhou Review inappropriately published the commentary “A Bit of Support for Bai Yansong: Speed Up News Legislation,” which constitutes erroneous behavior. Let this be an example to other media. (March 6, 2013)

浙江省委宣传部：对于新京报关于白岩松有关立法言论不转发不报道不评论。苏州新闻网不当刊发评论《挺一挺白岩松委员：加快新闻立法》属错误行为，其它媒体依此为鉴。

Star CCTV news anchor Bai Yansong is a delegate at the ongoing Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, held in tandem with the National People’s Congress (NPC). On the eve of the Congress, Bai said he would be advocating the passage of the News Law to protect press freedom. “The mission of this generation of journalists is to push for the gradual realization of press freedom in China,” Bai told the Southern Weekly, according to Radio Free Asia [zh]. “But the day true press freedom arrives will be the day I leave the profession.”

These instructions, issued to the media and Internet companies by various central and local government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online. CDT has collected the selections we translate here from a variety of sources and has checked them against official Chinese media reports to confirm their implementation.

Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The original publication date is noted after the directives; the date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source.

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Post tags: Bai Yansong, censorship, Censorship Vault, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, Internet censorship, media censorship, Ministry of Truth, NPC 2013, press freedom, propaganda, Zhejiang
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A former CMP fellow, Wang is China’s best-known investigative reporter. Over the past decade he has tackled scores of sensitive stories, from systematic corruption in China’s taxi industry to the spread of HIV-AIDS through careless and unnecessary blood transfusions. He was forced out of his previous newspaper, the China Economic Times, in 2011 after a spate of hard-hitting reports, including a 2010 expose about the mishandling of tainted vaccines in Shanxi province.

[…] In a post made to Sina Weibo yesterday, Wang Keqin shared details with his more than 400,000 followers about the clearing out of his desk at the Economic Observer the day before:

Yesterday I cleared out of the @EconomicObserver. These are the petitioning materials I received over a period of ten years at the China Economic Times, two tons of them. For other people these might just be waste paper; for me, they represent the trust and hope the people place in me. The things stacked here are misery, blood and tears, but I’ve always seen them as treasures. They go with me wherever I go. I can throw away my furniture, but these cannot be discarded!

Click through for Wang’s photos of the treasured documents.

McClatchy’s Tom Lasseter reported last October on the current wintry climate for China’s investigative reporters. Wang himself wrote in 2011 that the fortunes of Chinese investigative journalism had “shown the wave-like pattern of the ‘camel’s hump’“, but expressed some optimism for its long-term prospects. See also a 2010 Guardian profile and more on Wang, including his 2011 departure from the China Economic Times, via CDT.

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Post tags: economic observer, investigative journalism, journalism, journalists, press freedom, Wang Keqin
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A source close to Guangdong’s provincial government said Wang Genghui, a deputy editor-in-chief of Nanfang Media Group, which owns the newspaper, had taken over from Huang Can, Southern Weekly’s editor-in-chief since 2009. Huang had been sidelined and was likely to be transferred to another post in the group.

“Wang has a rather popular image as he is more willing to listen to editors and journalists,” the source said. “But this is likely to be a transitional role to restore normal operation at the newspaper as soon as possible.”

This week’s newspaper included a veiled protest saying that editorial procedures should be respected and made corrections – a typographical error, the erroneous numbering of the edition and a factual flaw that said flood control work by “Yu the Great” happened 2,000 years ago, instead of 4,000 years ago.

A comment below the corrections, signed by editorial staff, read: “Newspaper mistakes are always in black and white. In every link of editing and publishing a newspaper, its standard processes should always be respected and followed. We have never been more keenly aware of this.”

A report at Japan’s Asahi Shimbun, meanwhile, described Xi Jinping’s alleged displeasure at propaganda chief Liu Yunshan’s handling of the affair. Though the account is based on information from unnamed sources, Bill Bishop commented in his Sinocism newsletter that “[I] hear from other reporters that this report could be credible, that this paper has had other scoops recently..if true then very interesting.” One sign of the report’s accuracy might come in or after March when, it predicts, Guangdong propaganda chief Tuo Zhen will be removed from his post.

At a meeting in Zhongnanhai in Beijing on the night of Jan. 9, Xi, visibly displeased, asked if the media control division was not adding to confusion, sources familiar with the discussions said.

[…] Liu had decided to impose penalties, including dismissals, against editors and reporters who disobeyed the order. But Xi gave instructions not to punish journalists who protested the propaganda department, according to a party source formerly involved in media control.

Xi has apparently attempted to contain the fallout even by accepting demands from Southern Weekly reporters.

He decided to remove the chief of the propaganda department of the Guangdong provincial party committee, who led prior screening of the Southern Weekly.

The official is not expected to leave the post until at least March, when the National People’s Congress is scheduled to convene, because an immediate removal would reveal confusion within the party.

In particular, Xi reportedly suggested, Liu’s order for other outlets to republish a Global Times editorial expressing the Party line had turned a local problem into a wider one. (The order was conveyed by a Central Propaganda Department directive obtained and published by CDT.) Certainly, it spread the stand-off as far as Southern Weekly’s half-sister, the Beijing News, which initially refused to republish the article at all, and eventually buried an abbreviated version under a non-committal headline deep within the paper. At Reuters, Sui-Lee Wee described what had threatened to become the Beijing News’ last stand:

“This is the first time in China’s history, with the exception of June 4th, that there’s been such a large-scale collective protest by Chinese journalists against the central government’s propaganda department’s restrictions and suppression,” said Cheng Yizhong, who co-founded the Beijing News with Dai [Zhigeng], referring to the Tiananmen Square protests.

But Cheng said he expected no improvement in freedoms, predicting authorities would try to pre-empt any direct challenges by strengthening controls over social media. Cheng was arrested in 2004 on embezzlement charges that his supporters said were politically motivated. He was later released.

The editor at the Beijing News said management had warned staff not to talk about the incident, especially to foreign reporters, who “could make the higher-ups lose face”.

“It’s possible that after this, they might settle scores.”

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Post tags: Asahi Shimbun, Beijing News, Cheng Yizhong, Guangdong, June 4th, Liu Yunshan, media censorship, news media, newspapers, press freedom, Southern Media Group, Southern Weekly, southern weekly protest 2013, Tuo Zhen, Xi Jinping
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The Sit-In, by Crazy Crab of Hexie Farm for CDT:

Read more about Hexie Farm’s CDT series, including a Q&A with the anonymous cartoonist, and see all cartoons so far in the series.

[CDT owns the copyright for all cartoons in the Hexie Farm CDT series. Please do not reproduce without receiving prior permission from CDT.]

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Post tags: hexie farm, media censorship, press freedom, southern weekly protest 2013
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“We are like frogs being slowly cooked in warm water,” the former Southern Weekend journalist told me. “We were perishing slowly without knowing it, until this bowl of boiling water was dumped on us.”

“All these years, people like us have seen our articles killed and our voices silenced, and we’ve started to get used to it. We started to make compromises and to censor ourselves,” reflected Lin Tianhong, a Chinese journalist at Renwu magazine, in a message that had been reposted over 5,000 times. “We’ve gone too far, as if we have forgotten why we had chosen this industry to begin with.”

Just as journalists consider their collective acquiescence to censorship in the past partially responsible for their current humiliation, citizens who decided to speak out are also demonstrating a keener awareness of their own civil responsibilities. Large-scale protests in China in the past were triggered mostly by perceived foreign affronts or economic grievances, and limited mainly to the working class. In the most recent protest over speech, however, both online and on the street, middle- and upper classes have come out in large numbers. Besides the traditionally more vocal government critics like writers, lawyers and academics, movie stars, corporate executives, students, and tens of thousands of other ordinary citizens have joined the fight. Many of their messages at the protests show a new sense of urgency.

“If I don’t stand up today, I won’t be able to stand up tomorrow,” a sign outside Southern Weekend’s Guangzhou headquarter read.

Southern Weekly’s former executive deputy editor-in-chief Qian Gang, who is currently director of the China Media Project, provides an account of how the recent censorship of the New Year’s Letter was enacted. He ends by discussing the significance of the protests for the future of press freedom in China:

The Southern Weekly incident is important first and foremost because it exposes what has been happening behind the scenes. Over a period of several years, media controls have been transforming and becoming much stricter. Methods of prior censorship have been applied shamelessly in the darkness.

[...]

The staff at Southern Weekly had suffered long. But this time they hit their limit. Their demands were specific. They wanted a rollback of prior censorship. They wanted editors to have autonomy again.

Propaganda leaders may be more careful after this showdown over censorship. But the road to freedom of expression as guaranteed in Article 35 of China’s Constitution will be a long one. The orders and bans will continue. Punishments will still await those who step too far over the line.

But we can say that things have begun. For the first time, the word “NO” has resounded within China’s media system. The game of competing interests we saw played out this week was like none we have seen before.

Read more about recent events at Southern Weekly via CDT.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: media conditions, press freedom, Qian gang, Southern Weekly, southern weekly protest 2013
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One of the most shared images on Weibo this week, this image was posted by Southern People Weekly, a sister publication of Southern Weekly in the Nanfang Media Group. (Artists unnamed)

A proud rooster, defying his encroaching enemy, stands tall on a rock inscribed with the words “Southern Weekly.” Artist Rebel Pepper explains his cartoon [zh]: “The vampires hopelessly strangle one rooster after another, just to stave off the coming of the dawn.” This cartoon draws inspiration from the investigative work of Shen Yachuan, who made his name uncovering the assassination of a whistle-blowing schoolteacher. On the 10-year anniversary of Shen’s triumph [zh] last April, @ShenzhenLaocui said, “Even if you kill every last rooster, the sun will still rise!” (Artist: Rebel Pepper)

Many Southern Weekly staff pointed their fingers at Tuo Zhen, the new propaganda chief of Guangdong Province, for writing the reviled New Year’s message which replaced the original. To skirt the censors, netizens have referred to Tuo as a “lump” (坨 tuó), which is also the measure word for excrement. Scatological cartoons lampooning the censors’ treatment of Southern Weekly abound. (Artist: Pearl Forest)

A one-tuo note from the Proppy Bank of China. “Lump” Zhen is now a stand-in for the propaganda and censorship apparatus generally. (Artist: Rebel Pepper)

Posted to AmazeNews with the title “Say No to Shit,” Tank Man faces down an advancing line of government turds. The cartoonist adds the subtitle, “Support the Southern Weekly editorial protest.” (Artist: Badiucao)

Tuo has also been condemned online as an “ostrich” (驼鸟 tuóniǎo) for his conspicuous silence during the protests. (Artist: Simon)

These “news trimming rulers” are yet another reference Tuo Zhen. Netizens have “spelled” out components of Tuo’s surname with the characters for “measure.” As the “Minister of Measure,” Tuo appears to have taken a personal role in demarcating the limits of the printed word. (Artist: Mr. Choo Choo 500)

A carrot and whip are placed strategically on top of the editorial page of the January 7th edition of the Global Times. The top headline, “Southern Weekly’s ‘Message to Readers’ Is Food for Thought Indeed,” claims that the Guangdong Propaganda Department did not write the New Year’s greeting run in place of the original, and that loosely connected, outside forces, including Chen Guangcheng, have stirred up controversy through the Internet. All news media were mandated to carry this editorial. Beijing News refused at first, thus drawing it into the fray. The 50-cent coin above the whip is a jab at the authors of the Global Times apologia. (Artist: Shu Hao)

The censors and the press are personified as abusive boyfriend and female victim. “I rape, you resist! You must be seeing someone else…” (Artist: Dashix)

Press freedom with Chinese characteristics: a bureaucrat, feigning adherence to liberty and the law, holds the axe ready over the stack of newspapers which are his platform. He seems oblivious to the odd fashion choice of three watches and a Hermès belt with a Lady Liberty crown. (Artist: Kuang Biao)

Follow developments at Southern Weekly from CDT.

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Post tags: censorship, Drawing the News, media censorship, political cartoons, political humor, press freedom, Southern Weekly, southern weekly protest 2013, Tuo Zhen
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In a paper submitted to the legislature this week, the government proposed blocking public access to the personal information of company directors. Such a change would pose a threat to “most of the investigative reporting in Hong Kong,” said Mak Yin-ting, who chairs the Hong Kong Journalists Association and calls the proposal the biggest threat to local press freedom since the city’s showdown over a proposed anti-subversion law in 2003.

Currently, the public is allowed to access to the full addresses and ID numbers of company directors via company registry searches. If passed, the changes included in the government’s new Companies Ordinance would stop the public from being able to easily view such data from next year.

Such information has been at the heart of numerous investigative reports in the past year, Ms. Mak said, citing stories that embarrassed multiple local cabinet members as well as blockbuster exposés of Chinese official wealth by Bloomberg and the New York Times, among others. Hong Kong is frequently used as a haven by Chinese officials seeking to obscure their finances in a tangle of local companies.

See also CDT coverage of the two reports mentioned above, including The New York Times investigation into the business dealings of prime minister Wen Jiabao and a lengthy report published by Bloomberg about the wealth of new Chinese leader Xi Jinping and his family.

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Post tags: Hong Kong journalists, investigative journalism, muckraking, press freedom
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The exact terms of the deal were not released, but it appears that the journalists agreed to refrain from airing their grievances in public about Tuo Zhen, the propaganda chief for Guangdong province accused of the heavy-handed censorship that sparked the standoff. The staff had planned to publish details of more than 1,034 stories they said were censored or deleted in 2012, according to a journalist who asked not to be quoted by name.

Southern Weekly staff members were instructed not to speak to reporters for foreign media about the protest.

When the paper was finally issued Thursday morning, it was reportedly distributed at newsstands in Beijing and Shanghai before its hometown of Guangzhou. Some issues of the paper were missing sections. From South China Morning Post:

The newspaper, which is published on Thursdays, was not available in at least six newsstands in Guangzhou, which normally carry the paper. The paper appeared as normal in Beijing, carrying a cover story on the aftermath of a fire in an orphanage in central Henan province.

Thursday’s edition led with a two-page investigation into a fire at an orphanage in central China’s Henan province, in photo via Sina Weibo.

“It’s not coming today,” said one newspaper seller in a kiosk near the Southern Weekly’s headquarters in Guangzhou.

[...] In Shanghai, two sections of the paper were missing − one focused on a new regulation on land reclamation and the other on “the dramatic changes” in reform.

The front page carried a story about children killed in an orphanage fire, and did not contain any news about the dispute. The paper republished a People’s Daily editorial but added its own commentary. From Reuters:

In a show of continued resistance, the Southern Weekly republished a Monday editorial from the Communist Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily, that said “the party’s methods of controlling the media must move with the times”.

In its interpretation of the People’s Daily editorial, the Southern Weekly said the remaining reforms that need to be done are as difficult as “gnawing at bones”.

“They need the protection and support of a moderate, rational and constructive media,” the Southern Weekly said.

On his South China Morning Post blog, John Kennedy reports that not all planned content made it into this week’s edition:

However, Zuo Zhijian, director of features at Southern Media Group’s 21st Century Herald’s Shanghai office, revealed on his Sina Weibo microblog last night that censors killed an editorial commemorating the 30th anniversary of Southern Weekly’s founding that was meant to run in the issue scheduled to hit stands today.

According to one microblogger, today’s issue of Southern Weekly is two 4-page sections shorter than usual, absent its current affairs and commentary sections.

But the fact that the staff were able to secure enough of their demands to be willing to publish this week is seen by some as a victory, albeit a limited one. China Media Project’s David Bandurski tells AFP:

The agreement is a “small victory” in a long-running struggle between journalists and censors in China, said David Bandurski, a Chinese media researcher at Hong Kong University.

“It’s a victory in the most concrete terms, it’s a turn back to a normalcy of censorship that journalists have become accustomed to,” he said, adding that the high-profile stand-off could persuade officials not to further tighten controls.

But not everyone was satisfied. Editors told Al Jazeera that, despite publication, there was still lingering resentment among staff:

Still fuming, some editors and reporters tried late on Wednesday to insert a carefully-worded commentary praising the newspaper as a tribune of reform, but were rebuffed by management, an editor said.

The editor, who asked not to be named because he had been repeatedly warned not to talk to foreign media, described the mood among editorial staff as indignant.

He predicted that some staff would resign, either voluntarily out of anger or forced out by management.

“There’s complete disappointment,” the editor said.

A small number of protesters continued to gather outside the newspaper offices to make broader calls for press freedom and human rights, as well as Maoists there to oppose them. Other citizens who rely on the paper to have their stories heard also gathered. Mark MacKinnon of the Globe and Mail was tweeting from the scene:

Scene outside Southern Weekend is wild. Petitioners arriving from all over, saying paper is only outlet for their stories. #chinadiaries

— Mark MacKinnon/马凯 (@markmackinnon) January 10, 2013

Pro-democracy demonstrators, Maoists in shouting match outside Southern Weekend: twitpic.com/btxxvu

— Mark MacKinnon/马凯 (@markmackinnon) January 10, 2013

Protesters outside Southern Weekend dragged away by plainclothes police: twitpic.com/btxy2e

— Mark MacKinnon/马凯 (@markmackinnon) January 10, 2013

Some protesters in Guangdong and elsewhere reported being detained or questioned. A video of protesters being dragged away by police was posted by @JoFloto.

Several Chinese journalists expressed concern that the deal reached for Southern Weekend would not positively impact conditions at other media and may in fact lead to tighter control. Zhang Hong, deputy editor in chief of the Economic Observer, writes in the South China Morning Post:

One result of the strike is that the Guangdong propaganda ministry clearly has the upper hand as its actions are in line with party policy and will get support from the party hardliners. Any hope for direct intervention from the central government seems unrealistic.

Thus, the government will strive to achieve a swift resolution both online and offline by issuing clear warnings to those who disobey. In fact, it has already done so.

This crisis rings alarm bells for journalists and liberal intellectuals. The new government might kick-start economic reforms in certain areas, to ensure continued growth. But swift political reforms are not on the top leaders’ agenda, as they are still calculating resistance from conservative blocs. The Southern Weekly row could even be cited by conservatives as an argument against looser media control. This could be viewed as a frustrating setback for reformers.

In an interview with Asahi Shimbun, popular blogger and journalist Li Chengpeng says:

We don’t need high-rise buildings, the status of the world’s second-largest economy, or an aircraft carrier. What China needs now is a newspaper that tells the truth.

That is because the right to tell the truth represents human dignity. Major powers that command respect worldwide possess newspapers that speak the truth.

Our authorities have long exerted control on speech, but this time they altered an article and made a newspaper tell lies.

To me, this feels as if the insult toward freedom of speech has been lifted up a level. I cannot stand it, and I believe many other people feel the same.

The original protests by Southern Weekly journalists were directed at Guangdong Provincial Propaganda Chief Tuo Zhen. Tuo has been widely criticized for tightening controls over Southern Weekly, which had found space to operate with some independence within the censorship regime before he took office. Reuters reports:

While the system of government oversight had already been well established, including an internal censor to vet stories, current and former staffers said the levers of control tightened substantially with Tuo’s arrival last May.

Xiao Shu, a former columnist at the Southern Weekly, said Tuo treated the paper not as an asset for pursuing the truth but “as a burden, or a negative thing, to trample on as much as he liked”.

[...] While many Southern Weekly staff have declined to speak on the record, a picture has nevertheless emerged of Tuo pushing too far, just as China’s new leadership under party chief Xi Jinping tries to project a more reformist image.

“I think pressure on media has been accruing for so long,” said Li Datong, a former journalist sacked for challenging censorship. “It’s no wonder that a relatively small thing caused an explosion. Journalists have a lot of anger built up.”

Read also about recent events at Beijing News, a sister publication of Southern Weekly, which has suffered significant collateral damage as a result of this controversy.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Li Chengpeng, Li Datong, press freedom, Southern Weekly, southern weekly protest 2013
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