ONE of China’s most outspoken newspapers was plunged into chaos after 100 reporters took the rare step of walking out in protest against the dismissal of their Editor-in-Chief.

The Beijing News was published yesterday but the popular tabloid printed only 32 pages instead of the usual 80. Yang Bin, the Editor-in-Chief, was abruptly removed two days ago for “political reasons”, one source said.

His departure and the journalists’ defiance are part of a long struggle between Communist Party censors intent on controlling public access to information, and newspapers and magazines keen to attract readers. Party officials singled out the Beijing News for criticism at a meeting on December 6, when they decided to strengthen the party’s control over tabloid papers. The Beijing News had “committed errors in the orientation of opinion” and was a “recidivist”, officials said.

The newspaper had run into trouble when it was forced to drop its slogan “Our responsibility is to report everything”.

Propaganda mandarins had criticised it in June for breaking the story of the killings of seven rural protesters in Dingzhou, northern China, as well as its sympathetic reports about a migrant worker who killed his foreman and three others after his wages went unpaid.

China’s growing internet is policed by censors and users are blocked from some sites, including recently The Times.

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