User:Afgmcdonald/sandbox/southernweekly

This is the sandbox for my work on the Southern Weekly Incident. My intentions are to add some English language sources, including critical sources, and also to clean up some of the incorrect/awkward grammar and wording in the existing article.

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/08/world/asia/supporters-back-strike-at-newspaper-in-china.html

-southern weekend/weekly is a relatively liberal paper based out of Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province

-conflict began when Tuo Zhen, the top propaganda official in Guangdong, orchestrated a revision of the title of the paper's New Years letter, originally intended to read "China's Dream, the Dream of Constitutionalism," calling for increase in constitutional rights

-headline was revised to read as one praising the current political system

http://chinamediaproject.org/2013/01/03/a-new-years-greeting-gets-the-axe-in-china/

New Year's Greeting (新年献词）is an annual tradition for the newspaper and it was directly censored by propaganda officials without editors at the paper knowing or consenting.

-original title was “China’s Dream, the Dream of Constitutionalism” (“中国梦，宪政梦”)

--> letter called for constitutionalism in China, i.e. protection of civil rights and checking of power:

"Only if constitutionalism is realized and power effectively checked can citizens voice their criticisms of power loudly and confidently, and only then can every person believe in their hearts that they are free to live their own lives. Only then can we build a truly free and strong nation. . ."

-there were three versions of the letter: the one by Dai Zhiyong, which the quotation above is from, a second revised by editors at the newspaper, and a third with changes by the propaganda chief Tuo Zhen with an introductory message specifically from him

-title of the piece was changed to “Dreams Are Our Promise of What Ought To Be Done” (梦想是我们对应然之事的承诺) and then to “We Are Now Closer to Our Dream Than Ever Before” (我们比任何时候都更接近梦想)

-the separate introductory message from propaganda chief was titled “Pursuing Our Dreams” (追梦).

-violations of propaganda policy are: 1) propaganda chief making his own edits after the southern weekly editors dealt with his objections to the original (i.e. the second version), and 2) his adding his own text -- zhuimeng

-Tuo Zhen version quotes directly from the official new years editorial in the Party's Official Peoples Daily:

“We are now closer than we have ever been to this dream, thanks to livelihood promises (民生承诺) like “every person’s destiny is closely tied to the destiny of our nation and its people.”

https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/01/29/southern-weekly-china-media-censorship/

http://chinamediaproject.org/2013/01/07/inside-the-southern-weekly-incident/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/14/china-censorship-southern-weekly-incident

southern weekly was founded in 1984 and has a reputation for hard hitting journalism

-Sina portal arranged headlines so that the first character of each line spelled out "Keep it up, southern weekly!"

-Beijing News published a note to "southern porridge" as porridge and week are homophones in chinese

https://freedomhouse.org/china-media/special-feature-the-southern-weekly-controversy

Incident:

-Jan 3 incident came after a year of mounting censorship at the paper -- 1000 stories censored since Tuo assumed position, controversial party rep appointed to the paper's media group, last minute axing of eight pages of coverage of Beijing floods

-editorial staff at the paper discussed the incident on microblogs and wrote letters to the management calling for the incident to be investigated-management agreed t

- letters from were posted online by former staff and interns at the paper, calling for Tuo's resignation and criticizing his actions

-as the scandal grew, managers at the paper used the paper's microblog on Jan 6 to release a statement that the paper's editors had actually published the new years message--> this caused staff at the paper to strike

-strike ended Jan 8

Public Reaction:

-after workers at the paper made the incident public, average citizens began to proliferate statements on their microblogs calling for Tuo's resignation and supporting the paper/free speech

--> letter signed by 2 dozen plus prominent scholars from Taiwan, China, Hong Kong called for Tuo to be fired

--> actresses and students entered the fray (lots more about that in this source)

-Jan 7-8, 200 protestors protested outside the HQ of southern media group with posters denouncing censorship

Govt Response:

-keywords (name of the paper, name of Tuo Zhen, jan 7 protest, constiutionalism, open letter, propaganda deptm, freedom of the press surrounding the incident were censored on Weibo

-Jan 7 official media directive from central propaganda department declared that Communist Party's control of the media is an "unwavering basic principle" and blamed "external hostile forces" for making the situation worse

-all newspapers were ordered to republish an editorial originally featured in the Global Times, which is owned by the Party, that called demands for freedom of the media "radical" and "out of step" with China's development

--> president of Beijing News initially refused to publish it, but resigned later that day and the paper published it the next day, albeit not prominently

--> web portal also published it, but added disclaimers saying it didnt represent their opinions

--> Sina Weibo manager released a statement that his colleagues had done their best to balance compliance with authorities' directions while sill allowing discussion of the incident, by deleting individual posts rather than whole accounts. this post was deleted though and the account was closed.

How things turned out:

southern weekly reached an agreement with Guangdong communist party chief hu chunhua. terms were: staff end strike and paper resumes printing on jan 10, staff cease to call for Tuo's firing AND staff involved are not punished, editor who published the microblog post saying that editors actually published the letter not fired, propaganda authorities would tone down intrusiveness of their censorship

--> it was hinted that Tuo might be removed in the future

-some private citizens involved in the online circulation of pro-paper comments were called in for questioning/warning by authorities

''' I essentially rewrote the lead section, but kept its basic structure. I expanded Background section--adding the bit about Barack Obama-- and reworded some sentences. The Sequence of Events section was difficult to edit, because the only sources which have a level of detail comparable to those currently in the article are in Chinese. I revised the summary paragraph which comes at the beginning of that section and edited the rest of the section for clarity. Those edits for clarity were not performed in my sandbox, but instead done directly in the body of the original article. '''

Lead
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  (戴志勇), 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.