Japan’s highly respected daily The Asahi Shimbun suggested in an article on Monday that Xi Jinping was unhappy with the way the “media control division” handled last week’s Southern Weekly ordeal. Specifically, Xi was unhappy with the way Liu Yunshan, chief of the propaganda department and a longtime Hu Jintao guy, forced newspapers around the... Read more »
Sina Weibo was recently aflutter with Yi Nengjing, also known as Annie Yi, Inō Shizuka, and formerly Wu Jingy. As Tea Leaf Nation tells us, born in 1969 to a political family, Yi has been somewhat of an atypical pop star, often clashing with media and remaining outspoken even at the cost of potential endorsements. She’s taken... Read more »
China’s Internet censors are really outdoing themselves with the Southern Weekend scandal. Not only have they blocked searches for “Southern Weekend” on Sina Weibo and other microblogs, they’re making some attempts to block discussion within the Chinese diaspora.
Two big Southern Weekly updates this morning. First, it appears the ripples have spread to Beijing News, a sibling publication to Southern Weekly under the ownership of Nanfang Media Group, where the top publisher has resigned instead of publishing a pro-government editorial.
A remarkable message was published recently on Sina Weibo, supposedly written by a company manager who goes by @geniune_Yu_Yang — an account that has since been deleted. Prompted by perceived public misunderstanding of Sina Weibo’s handling of the Southern Weekly story, the writer posted a screenshot of text that illustrated the how and why of its... Read more »
China Digital Times, with its indispensable series on leaked directives from the “Ministry of Truth,” published this amazing leaked memo from China’s propaganda department yesterday: Central Propaganda Department: Urgent Notice Concerning the Southern Weekly New Year’s Message Publication Incident: Responsible Party committees and media at all levels must be clear on three points related to this matter:
For the first time in more than 20 years, according to SCMP, a major newspapers’s editorial staff in China has gone on strike to protest government censorship. They were on the streets this afternoon in Guangzhou, outside Southern Weekly’s offices, scattering chrysanthemums and other flowers, periodically chanting for democracy and human rights. It’s been basically peaceful... Read more »
It began as a strongly worded letter. When journalists at the Guangdong daily paper Southern Weekly returned to work on Thursday to find a section had been altered by a propagandist — headline changed, article replaced — they published an open letter demanding “an investigation into the incident.” They named names, in particular accusing Guangdong propaganda chief Tuo Zhen of... Read more »
Google, the company, has quietly stopped its practice of displaying warning messages to Chinese users who search for sensitive terms on its service. “At the same time, they deleted the help article which explained how to use the feature,” writes GreatFire.org. “This indicates a new development in the relationship between the Chinese government and Google.”... Read more »
The page editor at Southern Weekly, a Guangdong daily newspaper, left work two days ago thinking his section was set. The next day, he and everyone else discovered a pro-government introductory message in their paper, headlined “Pursuing dreams,” that no one had previously seen, according to SCMP.
