2013 Southern Weekly incident
The 2013 Southern Weekly incident refers to a conflict which arose over government censorship of a "New Year's Greeting" published in the Chinese newspaper Southern Weekly. Guangdong Province's Propaganda Department bypassed standard censorship protocols by changing the headline and content of the New Year's message without first informing Southern Weekly editors. In protest, newsroom staff posted online criticisms of the state of free expression in China and went on a four-day strike. The incident also sparked public demonstrations against press censorship which took place outside Southern Weekly's headquarters in Guangzhou, China. As a result of the incident and the accompanying demonstrations, keywords such as "Southern Weekly," "January 7 protest," and "open letter" have become sensitive topics blocked by the Chinese firewall.
''Southern Weekly'' Background
The Southern Weekly is a liberal-leaning paper founded in 1984 in Guangdong, Guangzhou. It is a part of the Nanfang Media Group, which is a provincial government-owned media corporation. Despite its ties to the Chinese Communist Party, Southern Weekly is known for hard-hitting journalism which tests the limits of free speech in China. The paper gained worldwide recognition in 2009, when United States President Barack Obama selected it, as opposed to the state television service, to interview him during his visit to China in that year. Notably, Southern Weekly's highest ranking editor, Xiang Xi, was demoted following the interview. Political theorists suggested that his demotion was punishment by the Party's propaganda department, angered because Southern Weekly did not seek its permission before agreeing to conduct the interview.Sequence of Events
On January 3, 2013, Southern Weekly editors awoke to find that the New Year's Greeting they had penned two days earlier had been radically revised by government censors. The original version of the Greeting, written by staff reporter Dai Zhiyong , was titled Dream of China, Dream of Constitutionalism. It called for the revitalization of human rights in China and the curtailment of excessive use of government power. The published version was titled “We Are Now Closer to Our Dream Than Ever Before” and was accompanied by an introductory message written by the highest-ranking member of the Guangdong Propaganda Office, Tuo Zhen. The introductory message, titled “Pursuing Our Dreams”, praised the Chinese Communist Party and quoted directly from the New Year's message published in the Party-run newspaper Official Peoples Daily.Preparation
In early December, Southern Weekly's editorial board decided upon "travelling across the river" as the topic of the New Year's message. However, chief editor Huang Can, did not like the idea. In mid-December, Huang suggested that "Chinese Dream" be adopted as the keyword for the message. On the night of December 23, the editorial board finalized the following preliminary plan for New Year's edition:On the afternoon of December 24, Huang Can asked the editorial board to submit the plan to the Propaganda Department of Guangdong Provincial Party Committee. Two days later, on December 26, Huang briefed the editorial board on the Propaganda Department's notes for revision:
Next, Southern Weekly
On December 29, Southern Weekly commentator Dai Zhiyong completed a draft of the New Year's Greeting, which he titled Chinese Dream, Constitutional Dream, and submitted it to chief editor Huang. The next afternoon, Huang expressed dissatisfaction with the greeting, saying: " don't know how to revise the message after the first paragraph. I don't even dare to submit this version since the department will cancel the whole New Year special." He suggested that Dai's piece was too heavy-handed in its mentions of constitutionalism.
The head of the editorial department, Shi Zhe, revised the greeting late at night on December 31. The 1,800 character long message, retitled Chinese Dream, Difficult Dream, emphasized the national rejuvenation which had occurred over the past 170 years in China and attempted to convey the difficulties associated with pursuing the Chinese Dream. Huang then submitted the revised message to the propaganda department. On the afternoon of December 31, Huang conveyed the propaganda department's comments on the piece to his coworkers, modified it somewhat, and renamed it Dream Make Life Shine. Huang's second revision was only 1,400 characters, as its discussion of constitutionalism and human rights had been further abridged. Huang said, "Once this messages gets approved, I'll be mostly relieved."
Editorial head Shi Zhe performed some minor modifications and passed the draft on to editors Cao Junwu and Yang Jibin. Shi told them that the draft had already been approved by the propaganda department and so should not be extensively modified. Cao and Yang made
Cao and Yang sensed that the post-censorship draft was different in written style than other editorials they've been edited, hence they did some changes rhetorically. The final draft, named Dream is our Promise to the Ideal Matter, was about 1,000 Chinese characters..
At 9 pm that day, Huang debriefed his colleagues that the whole "Evaluation of 2012 Newsmakers" section should be removed; In the "Journalist Actions" section, the reports of post-90s teenagers at Shifang protest as well as Zhang Jing. Huang declared that this move was his promise to the propaganda department to make the New Year special to be published. In the end, the "Chinese Dream" New Year special was reduced to 12 pages, rather than the planned 16 pages. During typesetting Huang took a photo of the sample pressing of headline on his phone and sent it to the propaganda department. At or around midnight of January 1, 2013, Huang suddenly received a new opinion from the propaganda department:
But the editors at duty told Huang that it was not possible to change the special completely since approval node for the sample has expired. After calling the propaganda department Huang was told that the headline photo can stay but the title must be changed. Eventually the title was changed to Dream of Homeland.
Modification by Propaganda Department after finalization
On January 1, 2013, Southern Weekly editorial department finalized all edits for 2013 New Year special at 3 am. Since New Year holiday starts from January 1, the five editors went back home, ending their three-day overtime work.The same day, chief editor Huang Can, and standing vice chief editor Wu Xiaofeng was summoned by the Propaganda Department of Guangdong Province. Assistant minister and news director of the propaganda department were also present. Both sides argue within these points:
At the night of January 1, Huang was asked by the propaganda department to change the New Year special name from Dream of Home-country to Chasing Dreams. Because at that time the publication process has already finished, editors and proofreaders are still taking their national holiday off, Huang and Wu overworked at the publication chamber and modified six pages against normal working procedures. After the newspaper went on sale, readers found multiple issues:
Staff's struggle against officials
On January 3, some of the Southern Weekly reporters post Sina Weibo to protest Tuo Zhen's ultra vires acts. As a consequence, 15 reporters' Weibo accounts got muted or deleted.Southern Weeklys editorial department released a statement about Tuo's distortion on their articles.On the morning of January 4, about fifty editors and reporters who previously worked for Southern Weekly co-signed an open letter, criticizing Tuo's instruction of altering the work as "an act of cross-boundary; an act of domineering; an act of ignorance; a move of unnecessariness." They demanded Tuo take the blame and resign, and restore the Weibo account for the affected reporters. According to Xinhua News and People's News, the national meeting of Ministers of Propaganda was held at Beijing. Ministers from all provinces were gathered there. Liu Yunshan, Member of the 18th CPC Politburo Standing Committee and First Secretary of the Central Secretariat of the Communist Party of China, attended the meeting and delivered a speech.
At the night of January 5, Southern Weekly called an emergency enlarged meeting for members of the editorial board. Huang and Wu detailed what happened to the editorial staffs. Shortly after the meeting, the administrator of Southern Weeklys official Weibo account was asked to hand over the password, which immediately made the editorial staffs start to negotiate with the leaders of Nanfang Media Group. Next morning, the heads of Southern Weekly met with Tuo Zhen. Tuo promised that a Great Purge won't happen. Nevertheless at night, Wu Wei, administrator of the official Weibo account was forced to hand in the password, and soon after the official Weibo posted a "clarification", passing the blame to the editors. Meanwhile, Huang Can, chief editor of Southern Weekly took the responsibility of the incident, saying Tuo has nothing with the incident.
On January 7, Southern Weekly News Ethics Committee posted a public statement at several social medias, pointing the finger to chief editor Huang Can and standing vice chief editor Wu Xiaofeng, blaming them acting against normal procedure under pressures from higher authority. The statement made no mention of Tuo Zhen. Some of the Southern Weekly staffs, including Zhang Hua, Zhu Zhaoxin, and Chao Getu, went on strike. Hong Kong broadcasting station TVB confirmed that the economy department of Southern Weekly was also on strike.
Sina Weibo backfire
On 9:18 pm, January 6, Wu Wei, director of Southern Weeklys news department, posted a statement on Sina Weibo, which was censored and removed shortly after:Two minutes later, Southern Weeklys official Weibo account sent a "clarification" statement:
At 9:23 pm, Southern Weekly Cultural Edition's Weibo account confirmed the information Wu Wei sent:
Soon after at 9:30 pm, @SouthernWeeklyEditorialDepartment2013 posted:
The very same Weibo post was also reposted by the official account of Southern Weeklys Economy Edition. However except the 9:20 pm Weibo post, all other posts were censored and removed by Sina Weibo.
At 9:49 pm, a Weibo account posted a statement that claimed to be from all editorial staff of Southern Weeklys Economy Edition, stating "Editorial staffs will fight against the inaccurate statement till the every end. We won't continue to work until the incident gets resolved."
At 11:04 pm, the official Weibo account of Southern Weekly's Economy Edition posted a statement and attached some names of their staff :
Those series of Weibo posts intensified the incident. On the night of January 6, media with different opinions, public figures, and anonymous users posted their supports or doubts about the incident, however some of the posts got removed very soon. At 2:30 am of January 7, Fang Kecheng, a reporter for Southern Weekly, posted a long Weibo signed as Southern Weekly News Ethics Committee on his verified Weibo account, describing what happened at the editorial department between the emergency meeting on 7:00 pm, January 5, to 10:00 pm, January 6.
Reprint of Global Times' editorial
On the evening of January 7, several media persons pointed out that the Central Propaganda Department issued instructions to some newspapers and network media to reprint an editorial from Global Times titled Southern Weekend's "to our readers" is thought-provoking, which is an article alleging Chen Guangcheng as the supporter of the incident, and saying that the so-call "free media" cannot exist under the socio-political reality of China today. From January 8, one after another, the newspapers reprinted the editorial invariably. But some of the media added the disclaimers at the end of the reprinted article stating the "republishing the editorial does not mean it agrees with their views or confirm the description", such as Tencent stating "republishing this article does not mean Tencent is in favor of their views or confirms the description" at the end of the reprint; Sina also said in a statement that "Sina posted this article for the purpose of passing more information. It does not mean agrees with their views or confirms the description".The following newspapers reprinted Global Times editorial:
- January 8:
Xiaoxiang Morning News did not reprint the editorial on January 8, hence was criticized by the Central Propaganda Department. It reprinted the editorial with How to Trust the Feeling to Correction, Follow the Time, and an advertisement for deinsectization service on the same page, and this was understood to be an insinuation to the Global Time. Gong Xiaoyue, former head of Xiaoxiang Morning News, who got demoted in 2010 because of a special cover, voiced against editorial by Global Times. He got muted on Sina Weibo soon after. His personal Weibo account, as well as some Nanfang Weekly journalists', got un-muted at the midnight of January 12.
On January 9, "Porridge from the South", an article from The Beijing News Gourmet Weekly, got promoted to the front page of The Beijing News online. The title was considered to be a paronomasia since "粥" and "周" are both pronounced as "zhōu", so the title can also be understood as being "Week from the South". The idea was reinforced by the first sentence of the article, "Rice was boiling in pot of hot porridge from the South when just served; it seems, also, to have a brave heart. In this cold night, breath is frozen, and in this tiring world, only this porridge and its warmth should not be let down.".
Official responses
On January 4, when asked about the incident, Hua Chunying, the spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China said: "I do not know about the specific circumstances, which do not belong to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I would like to point out a matter of principle that the so-called censorship does not exist in China. The Chinese government protects the press freedom in accordance with the laws, and gives full play to the supervisory role of the news media and citizens."Other official media, such as the People's Daily, Xinhua News Agency haven't expressed their stances. The Propaganda Department of Guangdong Provincial Party Committee has not come out to provide any explanation either.
Reactions
Supporters
Criticism
International
, the Minister of the Mainland Affairs Council of the Republic of China called on Beijing to improve the news environment, and respect the press freedom. On January 8, Taiwan's opposition party Democratic Progressive Party also expressed its views on the incident. Su Tseng-chang, the party chairman said: "A media environment with freedom of speech can help the real reform of the Chinese Communist." Former party chairman Tsai Ing-wen also expressed that press freedom is a universal value can not be deprived of.On January 7, Victoria Nuland, spokesperson for the United States Department of State spoke to reporters at the daily department briefing that "We believe that censorship of the media is incompatible with China’s aspirations to build a modern information-based economy and society. It is, of course, interesting that we now have Chinese who are strongly taking up their right for free speech, and we hope the government’s taking notice."