media - The take-over of Beijing News

I should not be blogging these days, since I'm within shooting range of my family the ongoing Christmas and New Year holidays really have a meaning. I shot off yesterday too fast an entry about the major media reshuffle by the Guangming Daily, who has been trying to take over the Beijing News.
Beijing News, in November newly established joint venture between Guangming and the Nanfang Newspaper Group was successful, both in terms of profit and in terms of breaking journalism, reported Danwei a few days ago as one of the first about the case.

In May this year, ChinaPR.com.cn reported rumors that Beijing Media Corporation was going to buy the The Beijing News, but nothing came of it, and there was no word on the street about the machinations behind Beijing's snobbiest newspaper, until the news [journalist/weblogger] Anti reported today.

The take-over included the sacking of three editors: Editor in Chief Yang Bin, and Vice Editors in Chief Sun Xeudong and Li Duoyu. Meanwhile the AFP reports as yet unconfirmed rumors about a possible walk-out of the 300 journalists at the paper in a protest. ESWN quotes a Beijing journalists pleading for the opposite:

"It cannot be the case that when the bad guys show up, the good guys retreat. We cannot give up ... We can still fight one headline at a time, one topic at a time and one article at a time."

Update 1: AFP reports that one third of the staff at Beijing News walked out of their offices last night in protest after three senior editors were sacked.

Guangming Daily denied Friday that Yang was sacked, saying he had been transferred back to the Southern Daily group, where he used to work.
"This is a normal transfer, not a dismissal. He has been transferred to the Southern Daily," said a staff member at the director's office at Guangming Daily who declined to give her name.

She declined to say what his new post was. The Southern Daily group refused to comment.

Update 2: The weblogs of journalist/blogger Michael Anti has been taken out of the air after he called for a walkout of Beijing News workers, one of my sources says. It is unclear what is behind the move, as the sites are not officially blocked by the internet censor. It could mean that Anti has taken down the information 'voluntarily', although some suggest MSN Space might have done it too, to prevent their dimain names to get hit by a blanket ban.

He was telling people that they could either say that they acted according to their beliefs or else many years later, they will have to admit that they were there but did nothing.

Update 3: The BBC now reports also about the strike at the Beijing News. It says that the Chinese media are not reporting the strike, but that should not come as a surprise.

The paper appeared on Friday, but many stories were taken from the Xinhua news agency rather than its own journalists.
Analysts say the row highlights a growing struggle over controlling news.

The last sentence means that journalists have been meeting in a bar and decided about how to tell us the story.

Update 4: And The Guardian with an overview of reports from other newswires.