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Wen Wei Po

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For a newspaper with the same Chinese name published in Shanghai, see Wen Hui Bao.

Wen Wei Po 文匯報
Typedaily newspaper; state media
FormatBroadsheet
Owner(s)Liaison Office of the Central Government
Founded9 September 1948
Political alignmentPro-Beijing
LanguageTraditional Chinese
HeadquartersAberdeen, Hong Kong
Websitewww.wenweipo.com Edit this at Wikidata
Wen Wei Po
Hing Wai Centre, the head office of Wen Wei Po
Traditional Chinese文匯報
Simplified Chinese文汇报
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinWénhuì Bào
Yue: Cantonese
Jyutpingman4 wui6 bou3

Wen Wei Po is a pro-Beijing[1] state-owned newspaper based in Hong Kong. The newspaper was established in Hong Kong on 9 September 1948, 10 years after the launch of its Shanghai counterpart in 1938.

Its head office is located at the Hing Wai Centre (Chinese: 興偉中心) in Aberdeen, Hong Kong.[2]

The paper is owned by Ta Kung Wen Wei Media Group, which is controlled by the liaison office of the Chinese government in Hong Kong.[3] Wen Wei Po is subsidised by and advocates for the Chinese government.[4]: 139  Wen Wei Po accounts for less than 1 percent of Hong Kong's readership,[4]: 139  and is mainly read by an audience in mainland China and older Hong Kong readers.[1]: 20 

In a 2019 public opinion survey conducted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Wen Wei Po was rated by respondents as the second least credible paid newspaper in Hong Kong.[5]

History

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Wen Wei Po was founded in Shanghai in January 1938. The Hong Kong edition was first published on 6 September 1948.

In the 1980s, Xinhua News Agency, which served as the de facto Chinese embassy to Hong Kong, reduced its control over Wen Wei Po to reflect China's guarantee of "one country, two systems" after sovereignty over Hong Kong is transferred to China in 1997.[6]: 123 

In 1989, Wen Wei Po published an editorial criticizing the People's Liberation Army for their crackdown of protesters in Tiananmen Square. The paper reported what it claimed was a firsthand account from a 20-year-old Qinghua University student, whose identity was kept confidential.[7] This account alleged that soldiers first set up over ten machine guns in front of the Heroes Monument and mass fired into the crowd of students inside Tiananmen square, and mowing them down.[7] The New York Times gave this supposed eyewitness account prominent display on June 12, a week after the events. However, no evidence has ever confirmed the account or the existence of the supposed witness.[8] According to Jay Mathews writing in the Columbia Journalism Review, the story was not factual—all verified eyewitness accounts say that all students remaining in the square were allowed to leave peacefully—and that instead hundreds of workers and Beijing residents did die that night but "in a different place and different circumstances", which had included soldiers shooting many on the stretches of Changan Jie, about a mile west of the square, and in scattered confrontations throughout the city, where some soldiers were beaten or burned to death by angry workers.[9] Lee Tze Chung, the president of the newspaper since 1951, was dismissed,[10] and editor-in-chief Kam Yiu-yu went into exile in the United States.[11] Following the dismissals, Wen Wei Po received financial support from the Chinese government to repair the image of China following the military crackdown in Beijing.[6]: 124 

Content

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Editorial position

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Wen Wei Po has been described as pro-China and leftist.[1]: 14 

According to The Challenge of Hong Kong's Reintegration With China, a book written by Ming K. Chan, Wen Wei Po is a "mouthpiece" of the Chinese government.

Despite their low credibility and dismal circulation in Hong Kong, these mouthpieces are well-financed by advertising revenues from the PRC companies...Wen Wei Po has received more funds...Both papers print many Xinhua-initiated commentaries under pseudonym aimed to criticize and intimidate China's critics.[12]

Space and military news

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Wen Wei Po is known to periodically leak first hand information about the PRC's space program and military buildup. Examples of this occurring include the advanced launch date of the Shenzhou 7 mission.[13]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c Wang, Bess; Wong, Tin Chi (2018). "The Landscape of Newspapers in Hong Kong". In Huang, Yu; Song, Yunya (eds.). The Evolving Landscape of Media and Communication in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press. pp. 13–30. ISBN 9789629373511.
  2. ^ "Contact Us". Wen Wei Po. Retrieved 22 June 2020. 香港 香港仔田灣海旁道7號興偉中心2-4樓 Head Office：3/F, Hing Wai Centre, 7 Tin Wan Pr aya Road, Aberdeen, HK.
  3. ^ Betsy Tse (9 April 2015). "Basic Law violation seen as LOCPG tightens grip on HK publishers". EJ Insight.
  4. ^ a b Guo, Steve (2018). "A Report on Public Evaluations of Media Credibility in Hong Kong". In Huang, Yu; Song, Yunya (eds.). The Evolving Landscape of Media and Communication in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press. pp. 135–150. ISBN 9789629373511.
  5. ^ Centre for Communication and Public Opinion Survey (2019). "Tracking Research: Public Evaluation on Media Credibility - Survey Results" (PDF). The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Retrieved 14 March 2020.
  6. ^ a b Lee, Chin-Chuan (1997). "Media Structure and Regime Change in Hong Kong". In Chan, Ming K. (ed.). The Challenge of Hong Kong's Reintegration with China. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. pp. 113–147. ISBN 9622094414.
  7. ^ a b "TURMOIL IN CHINA; Student Tells the Tiananmen Story: And Then, 'Machine Guns Erupted'". The New York Times. 12 June 1989. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 6 June 2024.
  8. ^ "Chinese newspaper cites WikiLeaks: 'Tiananmen massacre a myth'". Washington Post. 28 June 2023. Retrieved 6 June 2024.
  9. ^ Mathews, Jay. "The Myth of Tiananmen". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved 6 June 2024.
  10. ^ "China Cuts University Rolls by 30,000 in Bid to Curb Dissent". Los Angeles Times. 22 July 1989. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
  11. ^ "The editor who stood up to Beijing". South China Morning Post. 2012. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
  12. ^ Chan, Ming K. (July 1997). The Challenge of Hong Kong's Reintegration with China. Hong Kong University Press. ISBN 9789622094413.
  13. ^ "神舟七号提前至月底升空". Wen Wei Po. 2 September 2008. Archived from the original on 9 June 2009. Retrieved 2 September 2008.
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