Over the past few years there have been repeated signs that newspapers in the southern province of Guangdong, long known to be among the China’s most outspoken, have come under intensified pressure from the authorities. CMP reported last May that a reshuffle at the top of the Nanfang Daily Media Group, which operates such newspapers as Southern Metropolis Daily and Southern Weekly, was a worrying sign of possibly eroding independence.
In a report late last week, iSun Affairs, an iPad magazine operated by Hong Kong’s Sun Media Group, took an in-depth look at recent changes at the Nanfang Daily Media Group.
The iSun Affairs story provides a number of crucial new details about what’s going on inside Guangdong’s leading family of newspapers, including the recent creation of an internal “examination office” (审读室) that now seems to exercise strong control over editorial content.
A partial translation of the iSun Affairs article follows, but we highly recommend that readers of Chinese read the full report:

“Change in the South”
iSun Affairs (阳光时务)
August 9, 2012
What has happened at the Nanfang Daily Media Group? Why is it that a string of editors and reporters have been dismissed? How are news controls on the Nanfang newspapers working? How is self-censorship operating within the Nanfang newspaper group?
By Hou Fangyu (侯方域)
In June and July this year, an internal examiner (内部审读员) at Southern Metropolis Daily suggested to superiors that Southern Metropolis Daily should avoid any further use of the cartoons of a certain well-known arts editor, the reason being that his illustrations would be politically risky for the newspaper. The examination office (审读室) is a newly created division within Southern Metropolis Daily.
After the July 21 floods in Beijing, an eight-page special feature was pulled from Southern Weekly. Internal examiners used a red pen to strike out stories about ordinary people affected [by the floods], and only reports on the actions of officials were left alone. The [censored] newspaper edition was shared widely on [the social media platform] Weibo, but was then deleted by Sina.
On the one-week anniversary of the loss of victims in the floods, Beijing’s The Beijing News ran 22 pages of commemorative editorials and special stories. This presented a stark contrast to the situation at the Nanfang Daily Media Group, where swathes of news about the floods were removed. Together, impotent editors and disappointed readers let out sighs.
Former Southern Weekly commentator Xiao Shu (笑蜀) called for an internal reckoning, and pointed his finger at Tuo Zhen (庹震), the head of the Propaganda Department of the Guangdong Committee of the CCP, calling for the tossing out of this extreme leftist ideological official. Xiao Shu was removed from Nanfang Daily Media Group back in March this year. Tuo Zhen landed in the province in May.
Tuo Zhen is an extremely conservative news official (新闻官员) who previously spent 20 years at the [official] Economic Daily. During his time as a deputy director at the official Xinhua News Agency, he implemented strict censorship standards, and once he left to take up his post in Guangdong, people at Xinhua breathed a sigh of relief.
It is said that when Tuo Zhen came south, he came with the task of cleaning up (整顿) the Nanfang Daily Media Group. Coincident with Tuo Zhen’s arrival in Guangdong was the appointment of Guangdong deputy propaganda minister Yang Jian (杨健) as concurrent Party secretary of the Nanfang Daily Group. He replaced Yang Xingfeng (杨兴锋), the Nanfang Daily Media Group director [with a long history with the group].
Bad news has continued to emerge from the Nanfang Daily Media Group. In 2011, well-known commentator Chang Ping (长平) was removed and the commentary desk of Southern Metropolis Daily was reshuffled, commentary writers and editors were removed. More recently, there has been the discharge of [well-known investigative reporter] Yu Chen (喻尘). And there has been the cutting down of the paper’s weekend editorial edition from eight pages to four.
So what exactly has happened at the Nanfang Daily Media Group? Why is it that a string of editors and reporters have been dismissed? How are news controls on the Nanfang newspapers working? And more importantly, how is self-censorship operating within the Nanfang newspaper group?
The Mutation of Mother Paper and Child Paper
The Nanfang Daily Media Group has two levels, the [umbrella] group (Note: this is the Nanfang Daily Media Group, 南方报业传媒集团) and a network of “child papers” [or spin-offs], eleven newspapers including Nanfang Daily, Southern Weekly, Southern Metropolis Daily and China Business Herald (21世纪经济报道). Before the [former] director, Fan Yijin (范以锦), retired in 2006, the child papers managed all along to turn back interference by the group, preserving quite well the right for the papers to develop independently. But this all started to change after Yang Xingfeng took over as director.
While Nanfang Daily is the mother paper [in the group], income comes primarily from Southern Metropolis Daily/ Southern Weekly, China Business Herald and other child papers. But no matter how much the chief editors of these newspapers managed to distinguish themselves through their work, it was nearly impossible for them to advance to the group’s governing committee (集团社委), the Nanfang Newspaper Managing Committee (南方报社管理委员会), which is a provincial-level Party organ.
Before 2008, there were cases where deputy chief editors from the group concurrently held positions of responsibility at child papers, but there was relative respect for the independent operation of the newspapers, and there was in fact little interference. Beginning from the time when Yang Xingfeng took over as director of the group, visits to the child papers by the group’s governing committee meant more intense involvement.
In the clearest examples, after committee member Cao Ke (曹轲) was sent down to Southern Metropolis Daily, and committee members Wang Genghui (王更辉) and Huang Can (黄灿) were sent down to take charge at Southern Weekly, the relative calm that had prevailed at the child papers was shattered. The control was lost over editorial direction and over hiring, setting off internal conflict within the child paper network. Over three years of conflict and mediation from 2008 to 2011, the independent rights of the child papers were subdued by the group. The managing committee were no longer the blameless “representatives of the group” (集团代理人). They became instead those who exercised real control over the papers, and a power structure was in place.
The change to the power dynamics between mother papers and child papers meant, for the child papers themselves, that they could no longer act according to their own values. And they could no longer protect those editors and reporters who ran afoul of [official] controls. As far as the propaganda department was concerned, the shift in the power dynamic meant it was now much easier to control the media.

The following post by Jiang Zigang (蒋子刚), an IT expert, was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 5:08pm on August 9, 2012. Jiang Zigang currently has just over 26,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].
Jiang Zigang’s post first list statistics suggesting that per capita income in China has fallen steadily since the 1960s, but Zhang does not list the source of this data. A ranking of GDP per capita in 2010-2011 can be found here, in which China is ranked 92nd, right after East Timor and Ecuador. Zhang’s post then alleges high rates of foreign passport holding among delegates to China’s National People’s Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC)
Jiang’s post links to a page on this personal blog that re-posts an article by Tian Jiali (田嘉力) including the numbers he cites. Jiang’s version of the Tian Jiali article, originally at Kotnation.com, is no longer available. However, the article that appears to have originated the thread, posted to a blog at Netease.com, is still available in a number of places, like this one.
Jiang Zigang’s post follows:

Shocking Statistics: In 1960, per capita income in China ranked 78th in the world, in 1970 it ranked 82nd, in 1976 it ranked 84th, in 1980 it ranked 94, in 1990 is ranked 105th, in 2008 it ranked 106th and in 2010 it ranked 127th. A Central Discipline Inspection investigation . . . : 76.77 percent of delegates to the CPPCC hold foreign passports, and 57.47 percent of delegates to the National People’s Congress hold foreign passports. The people of China are represented by foreign citizens!… http://t.cn/zWWTKVD

The following is the original Chinese post:

《触目惊心的数据》中国人均收入世界排名：1960第78名，1970第82名，1976第84名，1980第94名，1990第105名，2008第106名，2010第127名。中纪委…调查：政协委员76.77%有外国护照，人大代表57.47%有外国护照。中国人民被外国公民代表！北京两会，外国公民代表中国国民之两会也！…http://t.cn/zWWTKVD

NOTE: All posts to The Anti-Social List are listed as “permission denied” in the Sina Weibo API, which means they were deleted by Weibo managers, not by users themselves.

Public anger has grown in China lately over rampant corruption and the phenomenon of the “naked official,” the corruption government official who has managed to send his family members and (probably ill-gotten) assets overseas. The English-language Global Times reported recently that Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has worked to establish an anti-corruption network among its member nations to help deal with the “trans-boundary effects of corruption”. In the following cartoon, posted anonymously to Sina Weibo and shared widely by celebrity users like writer Li Chengpeng (李承鹏) before being deleted by web censors, corrupt officials in black suits rip apart the ship of state to construct their own private escape rafts, causing the nation to sink. Li Chengpeng wrote of the cartoon in his deleted post: “I’d like to know who drew this, and what it is titled. I found this on Weibo, and some people had called it “Leaving China”. I’ve given it the title, “The Ocean Journey Requires Cutting Away” (大海航行靠切割). Is there a better title? This cartoon says more than a three-volume novel series.”

As we approach the critical one-week anniversary of the floods in Beijing last Saturday that claimed at least 77 lives, according to the latest official numbers — and as Chinese continue to heap criticism on the government via social media — China’s propaganda leaders are moving aggressively to contain negative coverage.
On July 22, China’s Central Propaganda Department sent down an order instructing news media to “reduce the number of reports on Beijing’s flood disaster, uphold positive reporting, and not engage in news reporting or editorials that reflect back.” Reflecting back refers in particular to coverage that asks harder questions — such as whether the response by the government was quick enough, or whether enough was done to build up essential infrastructure.
In the intervening days, authorities have actively enforced these propaganda directives. Eight pages of special flood-related coverage planned for yesterday’s edition of Southern Weekly were killed by officials. Images of proofs of some of the deleted pages were shared on social media, but quickly removed by web censors.

Searches for “Southern Weekly” on Sina Weibo today returned the boilerplate warning: “According to relevant laws, regulations and policies, search results for ‘Southern Weekly’ cannot be shown.” Even more interesting, searches combining the keywords “Southern Weekly” and “proof” returned today’s official Weibo coverage from People’s Daily commemorating those who died in the flooding:

As our deleted posts archive at the Journalism and Media Studies Centre shows, microblog posts critical of the government’s handling of the floods have been actively and constantly removed from Sina Weibo. Here are just a handful:

Example Deleted Weibo Flood Post 1
Example Deleted Weibo Flood Post 2
Example Deleted Weibo Flood Post 3
Example Deleted Weibo Flood Post 4

Beijing propaganda authorities even reportedly sent out a specific order for the wholesale deletion of “Totem,” a blog commentary on the Beijing floods by well-known writer Li Chengpeng (李承鹏) that was shared widely across Chinese social media.
But what exactly does it mean for Chinese media to “emphasize positive news“? And how does this play out in practice? Here is a brief snapshot of today’s warm and friendly coverage.
At Beijing Announcements (北京发布), the official microblog of the information office of the Beijing government, internet users are treated to a slideshow of positivity. Children happily playing in front of temporary shelters, soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army clearing mud away with their bare hands.

One of the stories on page A12 of today’s edition of The Beijing News, “‘Suffering Hero’ Smiles as He Receives His Disaster Relief” (领到救灾物资 “委屈英雄”笑了), tells the story of Zhao Lupo (赵露泼).
A migrant worker from Anhui province, Zhao Lupo is called “the wronged hero,” a reference to suggestions in news coverage earlier this week that Zhao, who acted commendably to help others in the midst of the floods, had been denied relief supplies from the village where he lived because he is not a local villager — which is to say he does not have a local hukou [See this related piece from China Labour Bulletin].

Local village officials have denied discriminating against non-locals — who would generally vastly outnumber locals in such places — and the article in The Beijing News seems to suggest things are all patched up as Zhao, smilingly, receives the relief that is his do. This is an interesting case of a slightly more ambiguous “positive” news story, a smile with just a hint of trouble. But the message is that all is well now, that it was all a misunderstanding.
A story running vertically to the right of the page opposite this one is a brazen feel-good story, that of the “golden haired” dog “Wei Wei” (未未), who helped retrieve items from the flood waters.

The positive stories continue in the Beijing Times, like The Beijing News a former national-level newspaper that transferred to the control of the Beijing city leadership last year. The front page of the Beijing Times, it should be noted, is more provocative than that of its Party counterpart, the official Beijing Daily.
The latter, as you can see below, does place news of the revised death toll of 77 in the center of the page, but it is squeezed in among news about increased “stability preservation” ahead of the 18th Party Congress and the resolute action of leaders to increase disaster relief. Crucially, the main headline at center emphasizes that this was a “natural disaster”, or ziran zaihai (自然灾害).

Additionally, an emotional piece of propaganda under the news report at center on the revised death toll calls for remembrance with this opening line: “The list of those who died in the large-scale natural disaster on July 21 has been released. Let us express our profound condolences to our brethren who were lost, and our highest esteem to the heroes who gave their lives!”
The front-page treatment at the Beijing Times is strikingly different. The whole page is dominated by the names of those who died in the recent floods, set off by rectangular boxes. At center, the bold black headline “77 Dead.”

The bold front-page layout is about as far as the Beijing Times deviates from the official playing of the flood story, however. A story on A16 bears the almost comical headline: “That Mountain * That Person * That Dog.” It is like a pointing finger that says: “Don’t look over there at those negative things — look here at all of these positive and uplifting stories.”

On July 21, rainfall in the district of Fangshan approached level not seen in 500 years, resulting in three types of natural disasters, high water levels, flash flooding and mudslides. Economic damage is estimated at 6.1 billion yuan, and 800,000 people were affected.
In this heartless natural disaster, some people lost their homes, others lost their loved ones. Perhaps they have felt despair and terror, but seeing those surging acts of love, their pain will lessen substantially.

The typically daring Southern Metropolis Daily, down in the southern city of Guangzhou, carries nothing whatsoever about the floods on its front page today. The top story is a call by Guangdong’s top leader, Wang Yang (汪洋), for cities in the province to beef up their e-commerce platforms. Coming second is the news that Gu Kailai, the wife of ousted Chongqing leader and prominent “princeling” Bo Xilai, has been formally charged in the murder of British national Neil Heywood.

On Page 2 of the paper, a soft-gloved editorial attempts to push against controls on the flood story, saying that “openness should be the rule, and secrecy the exception.” A second opinion piece bears the headline: “The Number of Dead is Not ‘A Sensitive Issue’“.
News of the adjusted death toll is pushed back to page 6 at Southern Metropolis Daily, buried in the middle of nine pages of advertising. This flood of advertising pages front-loading the newspaper could suggest that other planned reports were pulled and replaced with advertising.
Finally, on page 14, the newspaper runs the full Xinhua News Agency release on the adjusted death toll.
Tomorrow, we can probably anticipate more overwhelming positivity. Black news pages of commemoration, but little or no real exploration.

On July 21, 2012, Beijing was hit with what state media called the most severe rains in more than 60 years. At least 37 people died in floods that crippled the city, according to official numbers up to July 26, 2012 — but Chinese on social media argued that the real death toll was much higher. Harsh criticism turned on the insufficient attention to basic infrastructure in the city under rapid development. In this cartoon by Will Luo (罗杰), published in the July 25 edition of China’s official English-language China Daily, two construction contractors are shown at work with their “Beijing city planning” blueprints. In the initial long view at left, a large skyscraper is visible above ground, and the assistant holding a black umbrella says: “It’s gone up really fast!” In the second close-up view, at right, it becomes clear the two men are up to their waists in rainwater, and the assistant clarifies his statement: “I mean, the flood waters are coming up really fast.”

The following post by Wang Wei (王巍), an expert on mergers and acquisitions, was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 12:13pm today, July 26, 2012. Wang Wei currently has just under 1.6 million followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].

Right now Chang’an Avenue makes me recall SARS [in 2003]. The principal crossroads all have police cars with flashing lights. The roads are clear, and restaurants where there are usually lines to get in have no customers at all. Everyone has gone home, and the city is silent. The roads are tangled with the question of how a young lives can drown on the road in the center of the city, and how scores or even more residents can have their lives washed away in the city that was host to the [2008] Olympic Games.

The following is the original Chinese post:

此刻长安街，想起非典时期。主要路口都有警车闪烁蓝光，一路疏通，平时排队的饭店也没有客人了。人都回家了，城市也空寂了很多。一路上纠结着何以一个年轻有为的生命居然淹死在市中心路上，几十个甚至更多的居民竟然在奥运会主办城市中被大雨带走生命。牛气哄哄的首都也就能被水给治了。

NOTE: All posts to The Anti-Social List are listed as “permission denied” in the Sina Weibo API, which means they were deleted by Weibo managers, not by users themselves.

Rains pummeling the Chinese capital of Beijing on Saturday, July 21, and which state media said were the worst in 60 years, caused serious flooding through the city and surrounding areas. According to official numbers, the death toll from the flooding stood at 37 as of July 25, 2012. But as the city braced itself for more rain, web users attacked the city government on social media for not doing enough to build up basic infrastructure and prepare the city for events like this. In this cartoon, posted to Sina Weibo by Mao Ni’er (猫妮儿), titled “Asking for a Day Off” (求放假), two Chinese struggle through a violent thunderstorm. The text on the dark thundercloud reads: “On July 25, Beijing will see more huge storms”. The caption under the figures reads: “Won’t bosses with a conscience please let [workers] off for a day. In Beijing, when it rains PEOPLE DIE!”

The rise of social media in China has brought a burst of communication in the country. In the midst of the recent Beijing floods, for example, tens of thousands of posts on platforms like Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo shared local eyewitness accounts, snapshots and video in real time.
But social media have of course also become a new platform for the playing out of longstanding ideological divisions in China.
In a post late last night, freelance writer Wang Pei (王佩) made a post to Sina Weibo about the erection of a statue of Mao Zedong (among other world figures) in the southern French city of Montpellier.

Just after 2am this morning, veteran China Youth Daily photojournalist He Yanguang (贺延光), a past CMP fellow, re-posted Wang Pei’s original post, and added:

Why don’t they just add Hitler, Mussolini, [Japanese military leader] Tojo Hideki, Stalin, Pol Pot, Nicolae Ceauşescu and Kim Il Sung together with him?
也连带着把希特勒、墨索里尼、东条英机、斯大林、波尔布特、齐奥塞斯库、金日成的雕像一起弄去吧？

He Yanguang’s association of Mao Zedong with this list of historical tyrants, murderers and war criminals — Tojo Hideki, it should be noted is buried at the Yasukuni Shrine, a constant source of Sino-Japanese friction — quickly drew fury from leftist defenders of Mao Zedong’s legacy as a liberator of the Chinese people.
The Weibo user “Internationale” (英特那雄纳尔), whose name is a reference to the official anthem of the Socialist International, fumed in response to He’s post:

It is clearly written in the Party Constitution that we must take “Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and the ‘Three Represents'” as our personal guides to action. China Youth Daily was created by the founding fathers Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. @HeYangguang, a journalist at China Youth Daily, has clearly insulted our founding leader, Mao Zedong. He has classed Mao together with fascists and war criminals, and his motives are execrable. I strongly call for the removal of this unprincipled journalist He Yanguang! Everyone pass on this call!
中青报是毛泽东周恩来等开国元勋创立的，@贺延光 身为中青报的记者公然侮辱开国领袖毛泽东，把毛与法西斯战犯相提并论，其心可诛，强烈建议开除无良记者@贺延光 ！呼吁大家转起！

Many Weibo users did pass on the call from “Internationale”, including a user called “Lao Jiu” who added to his re-post the tag for “Peaceful Beijing” (平安北京), the official Weibo of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau.
Here we find, in the dawning age of social media in China, what we might call Maoist atavism. Social media are used as a contemporary, real-time tool to politically attack and shame one’s perceived ideological enemies — not at all unlike the so-called “struggle sessions” of the Mao era.
These are, we might say, “micro-struggle sessions”, or wei pidou (微批斗).
Here are some of the comments trailing behind the original post by “Internationale”:

1. Sina still hasn’t harmonized his [He Yanguang’s] post.
2. This bastard can be a journalist at China Youth Daily?
3. Just as you said, his parents were from landlord families.
4. He should have been fired long ago. This isn’t the first or second time he has opposed the Chinese Communist Party.
5. Who exactly is China Youth Daily speaking for? He Yanguang, this clown!
6. The [political] standpoint of the China Youth Daily has always been a problem.
7. China Youth Daily is an organ of the Chinese Communist Youth League of the CCP. [We] strongly call for the removal of He Yanguang, this performing buffoon.

The following post by Gong Xiaoyue (龚晓跃), a veteran Chinese journalist and former CMP fellow, was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 6:24am today, July 24, 2012. The post is a tongue-in-cheek criticism of the official handling of floods in Beijing and of the ruling Party’s handling of a number of crises of reportedly historic proportions. In the midst of serious flooding in Beijing last Friday, official state media in China said the floods were the worst in more the 60 years. This assertion was contested by journalists and experts on social media, who turned sharp criticism on the city’s lack of preparedness. Gong Xiaoyue currently has just over 143,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].

. . . Many thanks to this once-in-5,000-years government for allowing us to experience so many worst-in-a-century things in such a short period of time.

The original Chinese post follows:

紫薇同学还是那么凌厉。那谁说的？多谢这五千年一遇的政府，让我们在短暂的一生里居然经历了这么多的百年一遇。

NOTE: All posts to The Anti-Social List are listed as “permission denied” in the Sina Weibo API, which means they were deleted by Weibo managers, not by users themselves.