Guangdong officials want more "nitpicking" media

Zhang Guangning

Is China cracking down on its media, or are those media getting more drastic in challenging the official truths? Mostly both extremes are true at the same time and identifying trends is tough.
The China Media Project does a nice job in collecting a set of incidents indicating that at least in Guangdong province, authorities are encouraging media to become more active in "nitpicking" as Guangzhou's mayor Zhang Guangning puts it.

In a speech made before thousands of swimmers ventured across the Pearl River on Saturday, Mayor Zhang encouraged more media coverage of environmental problems in the Pearl River Delta. He said: “The more the media nitpick, the more we can get people behind the effort to clean up the Pearl River.”

Encouraging signs. More at the CMP.