Southern Metropolis Daily (SMD) is a newspaper based in Guangzhou, China,Wang, Xiaotong. 2012. "The Comparison Between Newspapers In Hong Kong And Mainland And Its Enlightenment – A Case Study On Apple Daily And Southern Metropolis Daily". 2012 Second International Conference On Business Computing And Global Informatization. and circulated mainly in the Pearl River Delta region. It is a constituent of the Nanfang Media Group, which is under the control of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The newspaper publishes on weekdays and is known for its boundary-pushing investigative reporting, most notably the Sun Zhigang incident. On March 1, 2006, it launched its weekend edition under a dual system: Southern Metropolis Entertainment Weekly every Monday and Southern Metropolis Weekly every Friday.
History Origins Southern Metropolis Daily (SMD) was first created in 1995. It is located in the Guangzhou City of the greater Guangdong and Pearl River Delta area. It was first established as a weekly newspaper under the name Southern weekly.Wang, Xiaotong. "The Comparison Between Newspapers In Hong Kong And Mainland And Its Enlightenment – A Case Study On Apple Daily And Southern Metropolis Daily". 2012 Second International Conference On Business Computing And Global Informatization. 2012. It was created as a constituent branch of the Nanfang media group, all of which are a part of the Southern Media Group. The name Southern Metropolis was extended to Southern Metropolis Daily in 1997 by The Nanfang Media Group, by which it was also established as a tabloid media form. SMD competes with other daily newspapers in the Guangdong region; including but not limited to Information Times, Southern Weekly, Yangcheng Evening News and Guangzhou Daily. The SMD headquarters was created in 1997, located in Guangzhou China which is where it still resides. SMD is written in simplified Mandarin and has a circulation of 1.845 million people.Wang, Haiyan, Colin Sparks, and Yu Huang. 2018. "Measuring Differences In The Chinese Press: A Study Of People's Daily And Southern Metropolitan Daily". Global Media And China 3 (3): 125-140. . SMD is a public media production company. It is ranked first amongst all local newspapers in the city of Guangzhou."Innovation Stands Out In Newspaper Rankings". 2021. Chinadaily.Com.Cn.
Renovation and Transition In 1995, SMD a weekly newspaper at the time under the name 'Southern Weekly' was failing to profit off its weekly publications. This was because all newspapers at the time were mouthpieces for government statements and because government party officials began to limit the public funding to regional newspapers.Short, Philip, Mao: A Life, Henry Holt & Co., 2000. The Nanfang Media Group attempted to revive the newspaper however it failed due to limited private funding from advertisers and investors. It was then decided by Nanfang Media Group to discontinue 'Southern Weekly' and create a new tabloid daily newspaper, the 'Southern Metropolis Daily. During this first renovation, SMD comprised 16 pages and employed 200 people in various sections within the newspaper.Schoenhals, Michael, Doing Things with Words in Chinese Politics: Five Studies, RoutledgeCurzon, 1995. In 1998, SMD changed its tabloid to feature a yellow and red colours masthead on the front page.Wu Guoguang, Zhang Weiguo, and Bao Pu, eds., Ziyang qiangu—Zhao Ziyang jinian wenji (Zhao Lives: A Collection of Commemorative Essays), Pacific Century Press, 2005. In the same year, SMD became the first and only daily tabloid to feature news regarding international relations and policy on its front page. SMD also created 'consumer sections', each daily edition would feature different consumer products.Wu Guoguang, Zhang Weiguo, and Bao Pu, eds., Ziyang qiangu—Zhao Ziyang jinian wenji (Zhao Lives: A Collection of Commemorative Essays), Pacific Century Press, 2005 For example, automobile sales would be featured on Monday, and real estate agencies would advertise new property listings within the daily edition on Thursdays.Zhang Yan and Fang Ke, "Is History Repeating Itself? From Urban Renewal in the United States to Inner-City Redevelopment in China," Journal of Planning Education and Research 23, no. 3, 2004, pp. 286–98. In December 1999, the circulation of SMD was recorded at 600000. Renovations continued with the lengthening of length from 16 pages in 1995 to 72 pages by 2000. In 2000, over 2000 people were employed at SMD with an average age of 27 years old.Pils, Eva, "Asking the Tiger for His Skin: Rights Activism in China," Fordham International Law Journal 30, April 2007, pp. 1209–87.
Pricing history Between the years 1997 and 2007, SMD editions were priced at 0.5 yuan (approximately 0.10AUD). This was the market standard price for all daily tabloids in the Guangdong and Pearl River Delta area. SMD was the first public newspaper in the province to increase its price to 1 yuan in early 2007. In early November 2007, SMD increased its price of the daily edition to 2 yuan, a 200% increase. Its yearly subscription package increased from 360 yuan to 720 yuan making it officially the most expensive daily newspaper tabloid in the Guangdong region.
Organisation News staff SMD reports on local, national, and international issues of public interest related to China. The newspaper has national correspondents throughout China, including Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Xi'an. SMD also has international correspondents in London and Cardiff. As of 2020, SMD employs between 4600 and 5000 employees. SMD has a median employee tenure of 1.8 years and has experienced an 8% growth of employees between November 2020 and April 2021.Veg, Sebastian. Minjian: The Rise of China's Grassroots Intellectuals. New York; Chichester, West Sussex: Columbia University Press, 2019. Accessed April 23, 2021. .
Content Editorial stance SMD is a market-based newspaper outlet that aims to create profit. It is a for-profit newspaper with a liberal political alignment. SMD is known for its "Practise of western journalistic norms."Esarey, Ashley. "Cornering the Market: State Strategies for Controlling China's Commercial Media" Asian Perspective 29, no. 4 (2005): 37-83. Accessed April 23, 2021. SMD focuses on reporting local events such as the Wenchuan earthquake and the Shanxi mining deaths. SMD provides statistical evidence and opinion-based journalism in its reports.Lei, Ya-Wen. "Freeing The Press: How Field Environment Explains Critical News Reporting In China". American Journal Of Sociology 122 (1): 2016. 1-48. . SMD engages with the local public by issuing surveys and conducting street interviews with citizens in order to provide multiple perspectives on reportings.Lee, Francis L. F. "Poll Reporting And Journalistic Paradigm: A Study Of Popularity Poll Coverage In Hong Kong Newspapers". Asian Journal Of Communication 16 (2):2006. 132-151. .
Structure SMD provides a daily publication 365 days of the year, this publication is between 70 and 90 pages. Every Saturday, SMD publishes an "in depth weekly review" which is an investigative edition of the publication and reviews events covered in daily editions throughout that week. Of the front page of the newspaper, 30% consists of the masthead and Southern Metropolis Daily banner, whilst 70% is an image or series of images with text. SMD comprises six sections within its daily publication. These include feature article, cultural section, political section, economic section, investigative section history section, consumer section, international section.Baohui, Xie. "Media Transparency In China: A Critique Of The Party-State Rhetoric And Market Discourses". The University Of Adelaide 1 (1): 178-185. 2012.
Style SMD is known for its colourful photographs and its populist style of writing, often breaching censorship laws in order to portray an uncensored depiction to the public. SMD has an investigative style, often incorporating interviews with victims of crimes, police officials and people related to matters of the public interest. SMD's motto is "writing for the people".
Criticisms and controversies The Clinton-Lewinsky publication In 1998, Southern Metropolis Daily received an international fax from an SMD international Correspondent in Indiana which detailed the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. Of the four Guangdong newspapers that reported on the scandal, SMD was the most popular, selling over one million editions of its 22 January edition, 1998. The SMD chief editor and journalist Cheng Yizhong approved a 10-page excerpt regarding the scandal.Hassid, Jonathan. "Controlling the Chinese Media: An Uncertain Business." Asian Survey 48, no. 3 (2008): 414-30. Accessed May 22, 2021. . This resulted in backlash from Chinese government. Cheng alleged that on 24 January 1998, he received a phone call from an unnamed government censor, who referred to the 22 January report as "vulgar" and made a threat that there would be "severe punishment" if censorship laws continued to be breached by SMD publications.
Dismissals and public resignations Employee dismissals in the SMD often occur due to journalist/editor writing styles which do not align with SMD's editorial stance. This is due to strict censorship laws in China. These laws prohibit the publication of viewpoints which are considered "slanderous" to the Chinese government.Jiang, Ying. "Chinese Anger at the Label of Censorship" in Cyber-Nationalism in China: Challenging Western Media Portrayals of Internet Censorship in China, 63-76. South Australia: University of Adelaide Press, 2012. Accessed April 23, 2021.
On 27 December 2005, Xia Yitao, who was a chief editor for SMD, was completely dismissed from his role. This was due to the front cover article from 26 December which depicted a Guangdong province politician Xu Shaohua having been punished by the Chinese government for a mining accident. In January 2004, SMD deputy chief editor Li Minying and General Manager Yu Huafeng were forced to resign by state officials after being arrested and detained by the Chinese police due to a breach of Chinese censorship laws; having had reported on the alleged police torture of Sun Zhigang. In 2004, Political reform activist and SMD journalist Cheng Yizhong as well as SMD marketing managers Yu Huafeng and Lin Minying were prosecuted by Chinese police on behalf of the China Securities Regulatory Commission for the alleged embezzlement of public funds which were meant to supplement a SMD restructure. In 2010, the director of the SMD column of Chinese history, Zhu Di, published an article entitled "Patriotism does not mean love for the Royal Court." This led to his dismissal in April 2010 due to a breach of the copyright laws in China as it allegedly breached censorship laws in China.Chua, Emily. "Rethinking the Chinese Popular: Commercial and Technological Change in the News Media after Mao" Berkeley Journal of Sociology 56 (2012): 48-72. Accessed April 23, 2021. On 29 March 2016 an experienced editor and journalist of SMD publicly resigned from the newspaper stating that he could not work under the government censorship laws. On 16 December 2008, deputy chief editor of SMD, Jiang Yiping was demoted from his position to a junior journalist role for unspecified reasons.
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