The following censorship instructions, issued to the media by government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online.
State Council Information Office: Find and delete the article “Local Propaganda Departments and Institutes of Higher Education Jointly Sponsor Journalism Schools; Officials Are Presidents of Schools” from the whole [Chinese] Internet. (December 19, 2013)
国信办：全网查删《地方宣传部门和各高校共建新闻学院 官员担任新闻学院院长》一文。
The Central Propaganda Department will assign its own officials to head ten major journalism schools in an effort to “strengthen Marxist education and reform the increasing ‘liberal views’ of journalism students,” RFA reports [zh]. Fudan University and Remin University are among those targeted. The article title in this directive appears to be a paraphrase of posts such as “Central Propaganda Department Takes the Job, Air Drops Officials into Presidencies of Journalism Schools” (中宣部出手 官员空降各新闻学院院长) [zh].
Chinese journalists and bloggers often refer to these instructions as “Directives from the Ministry of Truth.”
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 on CDT Chinese 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.
