How did the Olympic South China Morning Post perform?

Image via Wikipedia One of the smaller Olympic issues for me was the South China Morning Post. For years I had not read the paper, because it was not available online, but during the Beijing Olympics it decided to open-up, at least a little bit.
I thought, the experiment was rather disappointing. They started off with a nice little media riot, when the South China Morning Post reported that bars in Beijing were forced by local police to keep black people out. It was right-away clear that it was a false rumor, but it reminded very much of the SCMP-style of the 1990s, where they would do anything to increase their sales.
For a big part I have been monitoring the non-sport Olympic discussions at the China Herald and while there was no lack of debate and smaller and bigger issues passing by, the South China Morning Post did not seem to be part of the debate.
They did not shy away for 100 percent from all sensitive subjects (like they mentioned the difficulties between foreign media and the Beijing organizers), but otherwise they tried to be as boring as the state-owned media on the mainland. Preparing for the next challenge, volunteers proud of their work, I have been reading the boring nonsense now for have an hour, but those articles are not going to convince a critical audience that has access to much of the global media.
In my debate on the Chinese media I argue that ownership relations are key for the change of media. As long as the Chinese media are owned by the different government organizations, fundamental change will be hard to achieve. Unfortunately, the South China Morning Post is proving me wrong. Some of the Chinese state-owned media are much more exciting than this bulwark of capitalism.

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