Chinese Communist party officials and rebel editors from the Southern Weekend newspaper reached a tentative compromise on Tuesday night in their stand-off over censorship, reflecting the pressure on the party to end an incident which has marred its efforts to project a more open image.
Party officials have promised to lift some of the more recently introduced measures, seen as excessive by the journalists, in exchange for a promise from editorial staff to return to work and produce this week’s issue, according to messages on an internal chat group seen by the Financial Times.
“No more approval procedures for reporting topics, no more examination of copy by propaganda officials in the production process,” said one journalist with knowledge of the talks, describing the party’s concessions. This would roll back some of the more intrusive controls introduced at Southern Weekend over the past few months.