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Southern Metropolis Daily

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Southern Metropolis Daily
TypeDaily newspaper
FormatTabloid
Owner(s)Nanfang Media Group
EditorLiu Chen
Founded1997
Political alignmentLiberal
LanguageChinese (Simplified)
HeadquartersGuangzhou, China
Circulation1,690,000 (March 2012)[1]
ISSN1004-5171
Websitewww.nddaily.com

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[citation needed]. 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.[2]

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) [citation needed].

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.[3]

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.[4]

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.[5] 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.[5] 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.[6] SMD is a public media production company. It is ranked first amongst all local newspapers in the city of Guangzhou.[7]


The Renovation and transition from Southern Weekly to Southern Metropolis Daily

In 1995, The Southern Daily Metropolis, a weekly newspaper at the time under the name ‘Southern Daily’ was failing to profit off its weekly publications. This was because all newspapers at the time were mouthpieces for government statements and because government party officials began to limit the public funding to regional newspapers.[8] The Nanfang Media Group attempted to revive the newspaper however it failed due to limited private funding from advertisers and investors.[9] It was then decided by Nanfang Media Group to discontinue ‘Southern Daily’ and create a new tabloid daily newspaper, the ‘Southern Metropolis Daily.[10] During this first renovation, SMD comprised 16 pages and employed 200 people in various sections within the newspaper.[11] In 1998, SMD changed its tabloid to feature a yellow and red colours masthead on the front page.[12] In the same year, SMD became the first and only daily tabloid to feature news regarding international relations and policy on its front page.[13] SMD also created ‘consumer sections’, each daily edition would feature different consumer products.[14][15] For example, automobile sales would be featured on Monday, and real estate agencies would advertise new property listings within the daily edition on Thursdays.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).Zhang Yan and Fang Ke, “Is History Repeating Itself? From Urban Renewal in the United States to Inner-City Redevelopment in China,” Journal of Planning Education and Research 23, no. 3, 2004, pp. 286–98.</ref> In 1998, this renovation resulted in an increase in circulation from approximately 80000 to 400000 by the end of 1998.[16] In December of 1999, the circulation of SMD was recorded at 600000.[17] Renovations continued with the lengthening of length from 16 pages in 1995 to 72 pages by 2000. In 2000, over 2000 people were employed at SMD with an average age of 27 years old.[18]

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 making it officially the most expensive daily newspaper tabloid in the Guangdong region.[5]

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 4600 and 5000 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.[19]

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."[20] 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.[21] SMD engages with the local public by issuing surveys and conducting street interviews with citizens in order to provide multiple perspectives on reportings.[22]

Structure

SMD provides a daily publication 365 days of the year, this publication is between 70 and 90 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.[6] 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 history section, consumer section, international section.[23]

Style

SMD is known for its colourful photographs and its populist style of writing, often breaching censorship laws in order to portray an uncensored depiction to the public.[24] SMD has an investigative style, often incorporating interviews with victims of crimes, police officials and people related to matters of the public interest.[25] SMD's motto is "writing for the people".[26]


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.[27]

On 27 December 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 26 December which depicted a Guangdong province politician Xu Shaohua having been punished by the Chinese government for a mining accident.[28] 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.[29] 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 Commission for the alleged embezzlement of public funds which were meant to supplement a SMD restructure.[28] 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 2010 due to a breach of the copyright laws in China as it allegedly breached censorship laws in China.[30] On 29 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.[31] On 16 December 2008, deputy chief editor of SMD Jiang Yiping was demoted from his position to a junior journalist role for unspecified reasons.[28]

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.[32] 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.[33] These campaigns called for the abolishment of government intervention in public media outlets such as the SMD.

The Sun Zhigang incident

On 20 March 2003, The Sun Zhigang incident occurred. On 21 March, SMD published an article within the investigative section of SMD on the incident.[34] 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.[35] 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 2 April 2003.

SARS epidemic scandal

During the SARS epidemic outbreak between 2002-2004, the Chinese government called for a National People’s Congress session in March of 2002.[36][37] During this congress session, the Chinese government strictly prohibited the publication of statements within media outlets that did not coincide with the message that Chinese government was in control of SARS disease.[38] Southern Metropolis Daily was ordered to present a false account of SARS statistics including; an understatement of SARS cases in the Guangdong region and an overstatement of doctors and SARS clinics in this area.[39] On the 20th of March 2003 SMD published this false information in the form of a government statement in their daily edition as per the censorship laws in China.[40][41] SMD editors Cheng Yizhong, Yu Haifeng, and Lin Minying were opposed to this publication.[42] In response, on the 4th of April 2003, these editors quoted the deputy minister of Health Gao Qiang who allegedly stated that the SARS epidemic was out of control throughout China and included this statement in the daily edition of SMD.[43] In response, Zang Dejiang who was the part chief of Guangdong at the time ordered Cheng, YU, and Lin to report to him in Guangdong.[44] This resulted in a verbal warning on behalf of the Chinese Government.[45]

The Clinton-Lewinski publication

In 1998, Southern Metropolis Daily received an international fax from an SMD international Correspondent in Indiana which detailed the Clinton-Lewinski scandal.[46] Of the four Guangdong newspapers that reported on the scandal, SMD was the most popular, selling over one million editions of its January 22nd edition, 1998.[47] The SMD chief editor and journalist Cheng Yizhong decided to approve a 10-page excerpt regarding the scandal.[48] This resulted in backlash from Chinese government censors.[49] It is alleged by Cheng Yizhong that on the 24th of January in 1998, Cheng received a phone call by an unnamed government censor[50] who referred to the 22nd of January publish as “vulgar”[51] and made an informal threat that there would be “severe punishment”[52] if censorship laws continued to be breached by SMD publications.[53]

Awards and achievements

SMD coverage of the FIFA World Cup in 1998

Between the 10th of June and the 12th of July during the FIFA world cup of 1998, SMD broke a national record as the longest coverage of a sports event in history.[54] SMD achieved this through a consecutive forty-three-day coverage of the world cup.[55] This assisted SMD in establishing themselves as a dominant newspaper in the Guangdong area as China’s football followers were amongst the largest in the world at the time.[56]


References

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  3. ^ 'Exiled' Chinese journalist leaks huge list of censored terms, Hong Kong Free Press, by Vivienne Zeng, 13 November 2015
  4. ^ UNESCOPRESS. "UNESCO - Chinese journalist Cheng Yizhong awarded UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize 2005". portal.unesco.org. Retrieved 18 October 2017.
  5. ^ a b c Wang, Xiaotong. 2012. "The Comparison Between Newspapers In Hong Kong And Mainland And Its Enlightenment – A Case Study On Apple Daily And Southern Metropolis Daily". 2012 Second International Conference On Business Computing And Global Informatization.
  6. ^ a b Wang, Haiyan, Colin Sparks, and Yu Huang. 2018. "Measuring Differences In The Chinese Press: A Study Of People's Daily And Southern Metropolitan Daily". Global Media And China 3 (3): 125-140. doi:10.1177/2059436418806022.
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  13. ^ Wu Guoguang, Zhang Weiguo, and Bao Pu, eds., Ziyang qiangu—Zhao Ziyang jinian wenji (Zhao Lives: A Collection of Commemorative Essays), Pacific Century Press, 2005.
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