Dai Zigeng, the Communist Party-appointed publisher of Beijing News, resigned on Wednesday in connection with a censorship dispute centering around the newspaper Southern Weekly.
The Shanghaiist reported that the Beijing News, owned by the Nanfang Media Group (which also publishes Southern Weekly), refused a Central Propaganda Office order to republish a pro-censorship editorial printed in the Global Times.
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Dai's resignation came after propaganda authorities forced the Beijing News to publish the editorial anyway.
GlobalPost Senior Correspondent in Hong Kong Ben Carlson said it's important to remember that this is not business as usual for journalists in China.
"The always-uneasy detente between editors and censors has been violated this time in a way that seems to have rattled journalists across China," he said. "What's remarkable is how editors and writers at both Southern Weekly and The Beijing News have stood up to their censors, even at the cost of their jobs."