TIME's Beijing bureau received a note this week from the customs department that 62 copies of its May 14, 2012 issue entitled The People’s Republic of Scandal were being "safeguided by customs" to be "dealt with". Read Hannah Beech's account of their fruitless attempts to get their magazines back: more ›

Al-Jazeera's Melissa Chan, whose press visa was recently revoked by Chinese authorities, in comments made on the latest edition of Listening Post which takes a look China's new media and soft power strategy: "This is the first expulsion in more than a decade. So I think to look into it as the beginning of any kind of a pattern or shift would be premature. But there is a Chinese saying that you "kill the chickens to scare the monkeys" and in this case I may have been the sacrificial chicken to warn other foreign journalists from looking at sensitive stories." more ›

The Wall Street Journal has denied Hong Huang's claims that Rupert Murdoch fed them the Bo Guagua Ferrari rumour and that the paper was threatening a source which happened to be her friend. more ›

Japanese political commentator Keisuke Udagawa of the newspaper Yukan Fuji claims to have had an exclusive interview with former Chongqing chief Bo Xilai on April 26 in Beijing. The two are said to go back some 15 years when Udagawa was chief of legal affairs for a Japanese supermarket and Bo was the mayor of Dalian. Udagawa says Bo told him in the interview that he should have divorced his wife Gu Kailai back in 2000, and that some day he would make a political comeback like Ichiro Ozawa, the former chair of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party who was accused of accepting illegal political donations but eventually declared innocent. more ›

Oops of the Day: CCTV anchor He Jia mistakenly declares (at 1'35"): "As we all know, the Philippines is Chinese territory. China has unquestionable sovereignty over the Philippines." The video went viral shortly after it first appeared on Sina Weibo, and was quickly scrubbed off the CCTV website. more ›

The Beijing Bureau of Al Jazeera English has been forced to shut down, because Chinese authorities have revoked the visa of Melissa Chan, its Chinese correspondent, and refused to allow any replacement. more ›

On Friday morning, four of China's prominent state-backed newspapers released scathing editorials of the United State's involvement in the Chen Guangcheng case. As the clock struck midnight that very same day, one of those papers, The Beijing News, succumbed to online criticism and offered a brief apology on its Sina Weibo account. more ›

Today is World Press Freedom Day but instead of celebrating the freedom of the press, Chinese netizens have decided to mark the "Tweet Deletion Festival" (删帖节) because the date 5-3 sounds like "I delete" ("我删") in Chinese. more ›

A female reporter with the Xinmin Evening News in Shanghai, who was reportedly beaten up by Dalian Football Association secretary-general Guo Jun in Liaoning Province last weekend, is refusing to accept the club's official apology for the incident. more ›

Zhao Pu, an anchor at the state-owned China Central Television (CCTV) is said to have been booted from his routine program after advising people on his Weibo not to eat solid yogurt due to contamination scares. more ›

The news of former CPC star Bo Xilai's suspension has gripped China, with everyone offering their two cents (or five mao). We've brought you a round-up of comments. more ›

China's People's Daily news portal has launched a $83.6 million (527 million yuan) initial public offering in Shanghai, and will announce their final pricing on April 20th. The Chinese government controlled company have the intention of upgrading their technology, delivering news on mobile platforms and strengthening its editorial team. more ›

After rumours regarding an attempted coup in Beijing lead to restrictions on microblogging sites and arrests, Nanfang Daily (the same publication which ran a 'news story' on pictures of drunk foreign girls passed out) has called on the public to "bravely say no to rumours." more ›

For those of you looking to get yourself (or your boss) splashed across Chinese media, look no further than this article by David Barboza of the New York Times whose already done the legwork for you and found out all the rates: more ›

"'You are a journalist and a mouthpiece of the Party. Who are you serving, the people or the Party?' questions an official in Bijie, Guizhou Province during an interview. The public is quite familiar with words like these, since a Zhengzhou official uttered the same three years ago. The reappearance of such shocking words in officialdom and almost the exact same words at that -- it's a slap on the face of the people. Criticise as you will, they say; I will continue to say what I want to say. That's a provocation and debasement of public sentiment." more ›

The wildly popular US podcast This American Life has retracted the story by monolinguist Mike Daisey in which he details abuses by the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen which manufactures Apple products based on interviews with employees he claims to have met. To listen to the mp3 of "Retraction", This American Life's episode dealing with Daisey's deception, click here. more ›

"Chairman [Mao] was very strict with his descendants, and he himself was also very incorruptible. Look at our family, among all those descendants of Chairman, can you find anyone who is an official or does business? You can find none! Why? Because Chairman had set a good example." more ›

Guizhentang, the Fujian-based medicine company criticized for its inhumane bear bile extraction practices, yesterday opened their bear farm to members of the Chinese media. With Guizhentang applying for a public listing for the second time, the company is facing criticism and boycotts from animal rights activists and foundations, including the Animals Asia Foundation. more ›

Today is Losar, or the Tibetan New Year, the single most important day in the Tibetan calendar. But for many living in the province, now closed off to the outside world, as well as other Tibetans around the world, there will be no singing and dancing this year. more ›

More than half of the 27 journalists imprisoned in China are ethnic Tibetan or Uyghur, says the Committee to Protect Journalist (CPJ) in a report posted on its website. more ›

After featuring the political calligraphy of Bo Xilai prominently on its front page for two consecutive days on Feb 8 and Feb 9, Chongqing Daily appears to have done an about-face in its treatment of the municipal Communist Party chief. Today, it was Chongqing mayor Huang Qifan that occupied much of the paper's front page. more ›

State broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) has officially launched CCTV America in its bid to capture a greater share of the global audience. The new operation, located out of a brand new studio in Washington DC, will be produced by about 100 journalists in 15 bureaus in North and South America, offering viewers four hours of programming daily in three programmes: Biz Asia America, a business news broadcast; The Heat, a talkshow; and Americas Now, a news magazine programme. more ›

Simmering discontent among Hong Kongers with travellers and birth tourists from the mainland has reached a new flashpoint after members of the HKGolden.com forum raised more than HK$100,000 to take up a full-page advertisement in Apple Daily featuring the image of a locust overlooking the city skyline of Hong Kong. more ›

In the surprising 2011/2012 Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders, China almost skirts the bottom at number 174 out of 179 possible spots. This places them one measly notch higher than Iran (175), who is just coming off the 2009/2010 election protest involving rampant violence between the media and government, and 22 places below Iraq - the country responsible for the most reporter killings (151) in the last two decades. In an equally frightening bit of trivia, just two years ago the same slot was occupied by North Korea! Reporters Without Borders states: more ›

Raw footage from the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA): The Associated Press opens its latest full news bureau in Pyongyang located inside the KCNA headquarters. more ›

Watch the documentary after the jump... more ›

Here's more on the DaVinci media extortion case to which real estate mogul Pan Shiyi recently alluded to. The Singapore-based furniture company has accused a CCTV journalist by the name of Li Wenxue (李文学) of fabricating his reports and extorting 1 million yuan from the firm. Ho Aili, Beijing correspondent of the Straits Times, writes: more ›

Chinese President Hu Jintao expressed his concerns on Monday about the Westernization of the Chinese culture, and called for greater efforts to strengthen China's cultural influence worldwide. The remarks are the latest in a growing series of attempts by the Communist Party to control promote Chinese culture. more ›

"I look at the DaVinci case and I'm reminded of something that happened over a decade ago. At that time, we were often extorted by the media. They'd often say to us: The negative reports we have prepared for you have all been typeset and are ready for print. Bring your ad dollars in exchange for them. We were miserable. Eventually we published two books in which we detailed all our mistakes, customer complaints and criticisms from other industry insiders -- and the extorting journalists stopped appearing." more ›