Southern Metropolis Daily

Southern Metropolis Daily

Type	Daily newspaper
Format	Tabloid
Owner(s)	Nanfang Media Group
Editor	Liu Chen
Founded	1997
Political alignment	Liberal
Language	Chinese (Simplified)
Headquarters	Guangzhou, China
Circulation	1,690,000 (March 2012)
ISSN	1004-5171
Website	[2]

Southern Metropolis Daily (Chinese: 南方都市报) is a daily tabloid newspaper published in Guangzhou, sister to the Southern Daily and part of the giant Nanfang Media Group. The paper is known for its investigative reporting, which often gets it into trouble with the Beijing authorities. Its circulation is mainly in the Pearl River Delta area, contains Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Macau, but its special reports are much reprinted in many smaller regional newspapers.

As examples of the interplay between its relatively fearless approach and official consequences, it reported on the Sun Zhigang beating case (which led to the repeal of the forced repatriation law) .

In October 2015, editor Li Xin fled China to live in India, after, he says, national security agents pressed him to spy on human rights activists and dissidents.

The newspaper, along with the imprisonment and torture of the editors, Cheng Yizhong, Yu and Li, is featured in a chapter titled "The Newspaperman" of Philip P. Pan's book "Out of Mao's Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China.""Cheng Yizhong was the laureate of the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize 2005 for his courageous outspokenness which had contributed to raising public awareness in China.

History

Origins

Southern Metropolis Daily (SMD) was first created in 1995. It is located in the Guangzhou city of the greater Guangdong and Pearl River Delta area. It was first established as a weekly newspaper under the name ‘Southern Metropolis.’ It was created as a constituent branch of the Nanfang media group, all of which are a part of the ‘Southern Media Group’. The name ‘Southern Metropolis’ was extended to ‘Southern Metropolis Daily’ in 1997 by The Nanfang Media Group, by which it was also established as a tabloid media form. SMD competes with other daily newspapers in the Guangzhou region; including but not limited to Information Times, Southern Weekly, Yangcheng Evening News and Guangzhou Daily. The SMD headquarters was created in 1997, located in Guangzhou China which is where it still resides. SMD is written in simplified Mandarin, the only accepted language in the media by Chinese government. SMD has a circulation of 1.845 million people. SMD is a public media production company. SMD is ranked first amongst all local newspapers in the city of Guangzhou.

Pricing history

Between the years 1997 and 2007 SMD editions were priced at 0.5 yuan. This was the market standard price for all daily tabloids in the Guangdong and Pearl River Delta area. SMD was the first public newspaper in the province to increase its price to 1 yuan in early 2007. In early November 2007, SMD increased its price of the daily edition to 2 yuan, and its yearly subscription package increased from 360 Yuan to 720 Yuan.

Organisation

News staff

SMD reports on local, national, and international issues of public interest related to China. The newspaper has national correspondents throughout China, including Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Xi'an. SMD also has international correspondents in London and Cardiff. SMD currently employs between 501- 1000 employees. SMD has a median employee tenure of 1.8 years and has experienced a 8% growth of employees between November 2020 and April 2021.

Content

Editorial stance

SMD is a market-based newspaper outlet which aims to create profit. It is a for-profit newspaper with a liberal political alignment. SMD is known for its “Practise of western journalistic norms.” SMD focuses on reporting local events such as the Wenchuan earthquake and the Shanxi mining deaths. SMD provides statistical evidence and opinion-based journalism in its reports. SMD engages with the local public by issuing surveys and conducting street interviews with citizens in order to provide multiple perspectives on reportings.

Structure

SMD provides a daily publication 365 days of the year, this publication is between 14-24 pages. Every saturday SMD publishes an “in depth weekly review” which is an investigative edition of the publication and reviews events covered in daily editions throughout that week. Of the front page of the newspaper, 30% comprises the masthead and ‘Southern Metropolis Daily’ banner, whilst 70% comprises an image or series of images with text. SMD comprises 6 sections within its daily publication. These include; feature article, cultural section, political section, economic section, investigative section, and history section.

Criticisms and controversies

Dismissals and public resignations

Employee dismissals in the SMD often occur due to journalist/editor writing styles which do not align with SMD’s editorial stance. This is due to strict censorship laws in China. These laws prohibit the publication of viewpoints which are considered ‘slanderous’ to the chinese government.

On the 27th of December in 2005, Xia Yitao, who was a chief editor for SMD, was completely dismissed from his role. This was due to the front cover article from December 26th which depicted a Guangdong province politician Xu Shaohua having been punished by the Chinese government for a mining accident. In January 2004, SMD deputy chief editor Li Minying and General Manager Yu Huafeng were forced to resign by state officials after being arrested and detained by the Chinese police due to a breach of Chinese censorship laws; having had reported on the alleged police torture of Sun Zhigang. In 2004, Political reform activist and SMD journalist Cheng Yizhong as well as SMD marketing managers Yu Haifeng and Lin Minying were prosecuted by Chinese police on behalf of the ‘China Securities Regulatory Commision’ for the alleged embezzlement of public funds which were meant to supplement a SMD restructure. In 2010, the director of the SMD column of Chinese history, Zhu Di, published an article entitled “Patriotism does not mean love for the Royal Court.” This led to his dismissal in April of 2010 due to a breach of the copyright laws in China as it allegedly breached censorship laws in China. On the 29th of March, 2016 an experienced editor and journalist of SMD publicly resigned from the newspaper stating that he could not work under the government censorship laws. On the 16th of December in 2008, deputy chief editor of SMD Jiang Yiping was demoted from his position to a junior journalist role for unspecified reasons.

Climate change

Between 2005 and 2015, SMD published 251 articles which investigated and reported on China’s contribution to climate change in the 21st century. These publications alleged that China was the world's largest contributor to climate change and pollution related deaths based on 81 countries. China government officials forced the SMD to remove these publications as they were seen as defamatory to the Chinese government. The Chinese government claimed that these publications lacked scientific evidence to support the claims made. This resulted in public backlash from non-government organisations in China, as well as western countries such as The United States of America. These campaigns called for the abolishment of government intervention in public media outlets such as the SMD.

The Sun Zhigang incident

On the 20th of March 2003, The Sun Zhigang incident occurred. On the 21st of March in 2003, SMD published an article within the investigative section of SMD on the incident. SMD reported that Sun Zhigang was killed due to the ‘forced repatriation law’ which SMD stated allowed police to use ‘extreme’ force in order to retain and imprison a person who cannot provide proof of a legal occupation permit in China. SMD’s article led to public backlash throughout Asia and in western countries as well. This backlash led to the repeal of the ‘forced repatriation law’ in China on the 2nd of April in 2003.