More than a dozen newspapers have shut down in China since the beginning of the year, amid falling advertising revenues and ever tightening censorship by the ruling Chinese Communist Party. At least 13 newspapers that rely on advertising revenue but are still subject to the government's strict censorship regime have folded, including the Beijing Morning Post, the Beijing Suburban Daily and the Heilongjiang Morning News, official party newspaper The People's Daily reported. The Anyang Evening News and Zhangzhou Evening News titles have also been suspended.
Analysts told RFA that as commercial newspapers are increasingly squeezed by growing controls on what they can print on the one hand, and falling revenues and competition from social media on the other, government-run media are experiencing a huge boost resulting from their whitelisted status.
