China reporters confront censors over editorial

Sixty journalists from the Southern Weekly in Guangdong province issued a complaint Thursday over the last-minute changes that they said were made without the consent of the editorial department. Another group of 35 former reporters from the newspaper went a step further Friday, calling for the resignation of the province's propaganda chief — whom they held personally responsible for the changes — while arguing that strong and credible news media are crucial for the country and even necessary for the ruling party.

“If the media should lose credibility and influence, then how can the ruling party make its voice heard or convince its people?” their letter said.

The state-run Global Times newspaper hit back with a defense of the government line, publishing an editorial saying the media cannot exist “separately and romantically” outside the country's political reality. The spat has become one of the hottest topics on China's popular microblog site Sina Weibo.

China's media in recent years have become increasingly freewheeling in some kinds of coverage, including lurid reports on celebrities and sports figures. Still, censorship of political issues remains tight — although government officials typically claim there is no censorship at all — and the restrictions have drawn increasingly vocal criticism from journalists and members of the public.

Touching off the latest tussle was a New Year's message to be published in the Southern Weekly on Thursday. The original version called for democracy, freedom and adherence to the constitution — a reference to promises made in the 1982-era constitution to allow such reforms as independent courts and the rule of law. The country's Communist leaders have been reluctant to fulfill those pledges for fear of eroding their monopoly on power.

“The Chinese dream is the dream of constitutional rule,” the original version read, according to photographs of the text widely disseminated online and confirmed in a telephone interview with its author, one of the newspaper's editors, Dai Zhiyong.

That later was watered down as part of the newspaper's usual vetting process with upper-level management — a process that is part self-censorship, part consultation with Communist Party censors. It was watered down further, Southern Weekly journalists say, without the knowledge of front-line reporters and editors on the evening before it hit the newsstand.

The version that eventually was published said the Chinese dream of renaissance was closer than ever before, thanks to China's Communist leaders.

The Southern Weekly's New Year message has become a popular and influential tradition.

The journalists took issue not only with the changes to that message but with revisions of the headline and design. In particular, they said an additional message apparently added by censors to the newspaper's front page contained a major error about Chinese folk history. A reference to a flood control campaign supposedly introduced 4,000 years ago was erroneously dated to about 2,000 years ago.

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