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China slashes thousands of news branches

Xinhua, June 18, 2015 Adjust font size:

China has shut down or merged 1,134 local offices of major news agencies, accounting for 36 percent of the targeted 3,160 branches, the press watchdog announced on Thursday.

Another 386 local news offices were asked to correct various violations, said the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT) in a statement. The remaining 1,640 branches remain untouched.

The campaign also dismissed 1,435 "unlawfully recruited employees," accounting for 12 percent of the total staff, just the first round of cutting.

The campaign was launched in December to regulate local branches of centrally-administrated press and publication organizations including the Xinhua News Agency, China National Radio and some major news websites.

But the People's Daily, newspaper of the Communist Party of China, along with the state Xinhua News Agency and China Central Television, have had almost all of their branches retained. In central China's Hunan Province, 16 news branches were slashed mainly from specialist publications such as China Tourism News and China Real Estate Business.

Some agencies set up several branches and arbitrarily recruited employees, according to the violations listed by the SAPPRFT. Newsroom staff were often engaged in commercial business and some reporters abused interviews to seek illicit profits.

In China, cases of journalists demanding money for covering up negative stories or releasing promotional ones -- largely fabricated -- have been routinely exposed. Endi