Journalists and editors at an influential and often outspoken newspaper in China have gone on strike in protest of government censorship. The dispute involves a local propaganda official who allegedly called for changes to the publication's annual New Years editorial to its readers. The standoff at the Southern Weekly newspaper is growing from an internal dispute into a national debate about government oversight of the media.
The influential newspaper has long been known for its outspokenness and independent-minded efforts to cover the news in a country where information is a tightly controlled commodity.
Employees say that when they returned from an annual New Years holiday last Thursday they discovered that a section of the paper that was to discuss the touchy topic of constitutional reform had been dramatically changed. That prompted an uproar.
The uproar came first online - on blogs and other Twitter-like Weibo social media sites - with staffers accusing the propaganda chief where the paper is based, in Guangdong province, of making the changes and then, on Monday, in the form of protests outside the companys offices.
Photos of the protesters that managed to briefly get posted online before they were taken down showed some holding up signs and shouting slogans calling for freedom of speech, democracy and political reform.
Li Datong, a former prominent Chinese editor who was fired from a state media organization for his views, says the apparent intervention by the propaganda department appears to be a new tactic for state censors.
"The propaganda department has already changed from the previous mode of censorship after publication to what we see now as a move towards censorship before publication," said Li. "It does not matter if it was Tuo Zhen, himself, but it was the propaganda department that did this. They have transformed what was control after publication to control before publication. This is a very nasty beginning."
Dozens of academics and editors have already begun openly calling, on line, for the resignation of the propaganda chief. Students from Chinas Nanjing University and others have posted pictures of themselves online as well holding cards that cheered the newspaper on urging it to Jia You in Chinese, which means "Go."
Some are already beginning to believe the dispute could become a watershed event that promotes much deeper reforms.
Since Xi Jinping took over as head of the Communist Party in November, journalists have been taking bolder steps in testing the limits of the countrys new team of leaders both in reporting and on editorial pages.
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Censorship Fight at Newspaper in China Grows