media - Emotional scenes at the Beijing News office

"I have the right to resist being raped, even if only for one day," writes a Beijing News worker in his weblog, in a translation by ESWN. Very emotional and also very recognizable scenes follow in his entry.
It describes what happened after a larger group of journalists signed a petition to support their sacked boss Yang Bin.

We chatted until it was night time. Nobody had any articles. The editors had nothing to edit. So we went out to have dinner. The current news division had many people present. Basically, we were all there. There were a lot of people who didn't know each other. So it was a lot of fun to fool around and it was not any different from an ordinary get-together.
And then I saw Xiao Guo cry. Zhu Min also cried like a little child. When Yan Zhen cried, her voice was just as loud as normal. Sister Wang Rui told everyone not to cry, but in the end she cried too.

How has life changed thanks to weblogs (and of course the translations by ESWN).

Update: More reports from Non-violent Resistance from the Beijing News offices on the background of the crackdown. The rumors at the office:

it appears that the decision to "discipline" the paper came from higher than most of us thought. Rumors have it that it was during a meeting of the P-buro about the media, when mandarins representing multiple government agencies joined in an sudden, vicous chorus against the paper. The Ministry of Public Security seems to be among the most fierce attackers, who complained that the paper had "hyped" multiple cases of prison inmates who had been wrongfully convicted, a few executed, in past years. The Beijing municiple government was another vocal protestor.

Strategy seems to have changed from protest to damage control and talk on a massive resignation seems to be off for the moment, althought the initial protest has helped. The weblog also tells about the solidarity among other media for the Beijing News.