Southern Weekly’s top five censored stories of 2012

By Tom Bannister
Although the controversial newspaper has resumed publishing, and free-speech protests have fizzled out, the Southern Weekly continues to relish prodding and poking Beijing’s hardliners.
At the newspaper’s annual meeting Friday, an occasion where there was no doubt rather a few pressing issues to discuss, staff awarded prizes to the five best stories that had been censored last year. A journalist at the newspaper posted photos of the synopsis of each of the winning stories on Weibo. This was then forwarded by thousands of other users before the posts were, rather appropriately, deleted by censors.
The top five stories that won the awards were:
1) A feature story about the ‘rational’ youngsters who refused to get involved in the anti-Japanese protests in September.

2) An article about the 79 victims killed as a result of heavy rain in Beijing in the summer.

3) A feature about Zhang Jun, a top official.

4) An article about young people from Wukan, the village in which huge protests occurred in 2011.

5) An interview with Yoshihiko Noda, former Japanese prime minister.

Photos [via] Weibo

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