The Beijing News

Type	Daily newspaper
Format	Tabloid (四开 size)[1]
Owner(s)	Publicity Department of the Beijing municipal committee of the Chinese Communist Party
Founder(s)	Guangming Daily Press Nanfang Media Group
Publisher	The Beijing News Press (Chinese: 新京报社)
Founded	11 November 2003; 21 years ago (2003-11-11)
Political alignment	Chinese Communist Party
Language	Chinese
City	Beijing
Country	China
Website	www.bjnews.com.cn
Free online archives	epaper.bjnews.com.cn
Media of China List of newspapers

The Beijing News (新京报) is a daily newspaper headquartered in Dongcheng, Beijing, China. It was co-founded by Guangming Daily and Nanfang Daily in November 2003. In September 2011, the newspaper was transferred to the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.^[2]

The Beijing News began publishing on 11 November 2003^[1] by a joint venture of Guangming Daily Press and Nanfang Media Group (also transliterated as "Southern Newspaper Group" or Southern Daily Press Group, publisher of Southern Weekly),^[1][3] both owned by the sub-committees of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the ruling party of China since 1949. Guangming Daily Press was owned by the Central Committee^[4] while Nanfang Media Group was owned by the Guangdong provincial committee of the CCP.^[5] Initially, staff from Nanfang Media Group dominated the day-to-day operation of the newspaper, turning The Beijing News into one of Beijing's most influential newspapers.^[3]

According to Jonathan Hassid, an assistant professor (from 2015 to 2018) at Iowa State University, the two publishers had different difficulties in their publishing business. Guangming Daily had a valuable central-level administrative rank but was the country poorest major publisher, while "Nanfang" had money to invest but its administrative rank was restricting the publisher to obtain new publication number or expand outside their home province Guangdong.^[3] According to another article by Congressional-Executive Commission on China, "the Guangming Daily consistently follows the Party's line, while the Southern Daily Press Group's [sic] publications tend to be more commercially-oriented and willing to test Chinese censors".^[6]

In 2005, staff and online readers protested the sacking of the editors of the newspaper.^[7]

In July 2011, the newspaper defied the ban on reporting Wenzhou train collision.^[8] However, in the same month, the newspaper scrapped 9 pages of special reporting.^[9]

On 1 September 2011, the newspaper was taken over by the Publicity Department of the Beijing municipal committee of the Chinese Communist Party [zh].^[1]

In 2013, it was reported that Dai Zigeng, a publisher of the newspaper, had verbally resigned due to political pressure from the propaganda authorities.^[10][11]

In 2014, it was reported that the municipal propaganda department had acquired the remaining 49% stake from Nanfang Media Group.^[12] According to the South China Morning Post, an English newspaper from Hong Kong, the general public were afraid that The Beijing News would be turned into a "propaganda mouthpiece".^[12] In February 2014, The Beijing News, made a news coverage regarding Zhou Yongkang's son possible corruption, but the article was taken down from the newspaper's website.^[13]

In 2018, the merger of the newspapers The Beijing News, the Beijing Morning Post [zh] and the news website qianlong.com (千龙网) was announced.^[14] Beijing Morning Post ceased the publication in the same year.^[15]

• Beijing Times, another Beijing newspaper, ceased publication in 2017
• Beijing Daily Group: a publishing group that was also owned by the Beijing Municipal CCP Committee,^[16] the owner of The Beijing News. Beijing Daily Group publishes Beijing Morning Post as well as 8 other newspapers as of 2016,^[16] such as:
  • Beijing Daily
  • Beijing Evening News

• Official website