Editor at liberal Chinese newspaper fired over Xi front page
Veteran journalists punished over headline combination seen as veiled criticism of president’s call for state media loyalty to the Communist Party
A senior editor of an outspoken newspaper in southern China has been sacked over the “mishandling” of a front page that contained a picture of a sea burial of a prominent reformer and a headline of President Xi Jinping’s call for loyalty from state media.
Liu Yuxia, one of the front-page editors of the Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolis News, was fired over the front page of the February 20 Shenzhen edition which resulted “misguidance of public opinion”.
The paper’s deputy chief editor, Wang Haijun, who was on duty when the edition went to press, was given a “serious demerit”, according to a leaked internal Nanfang Media Group document, which accused the editors of seriously lacking “political sensitivity”.
Sources familiar with the matter confirmed the sacking and the existence of the leaked document to the South China Morning Post.
The front page in question featured a headline high up on the page that read: “The media run by the party and the government are a base for propaganda and must follow the surname [display complete loyalty to] of the party”. The words were a quote from a speech on news and public opinion that Xi gave at a forum last week.
Directly beneath the headline was a large photograph of the ashes of prominent reformist Yuan Geng being scattered at sea. In the top right corner of the picture was another headline: “The soul returns to the sea”.
