Media feel pressure to tell ‘positive’ China story as party tightens grip: State-linked Sixth Tone news outlet, known for its coverage of socioeconomic issues, comes under scrutiny [2024]

[…] Former and current employees at Sixth Tone have recently given accounts of how articles have been removed and phrases censored on a massive scale across the outlet’s archives. Editors have also been required to check in with censors every few hours and certain terminology has been changed to align with the preferred narrative of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) including referring to Tibet as “Xizang” […]

Instead, he argues that allowing Sixth Tone to pursue its own journalistic style was akin to a controlled experiment by the CCP.

“The Chinese government’s support for Sixth Tone allowed for a subtle control over the tone and framing of such issues.” […]

One of those staff members is former editor Bibek Bhandari who allegedly landed himself and several other employees at Sixth Tone in “hot water” last year after publishing a media project that criticised Beijing’s zero-COVID policy […]

“I resigned. Demand for ‘positive stories’ was growing. Censorship getting worse. And the place has been utterly mismanaged. Space for stories that we previously published without any hiccups is shrinking. It’s not the same place I joined.” […]