On August 20, China Digital Times published an image of the front pages of five major newspapers in China on August 19. The content and layout of these front pages were almost the same. These five newspapers are People’s Daily , Economic Daily , Guangming Daily , Beijing Daily , and PLA Daily (People’s Liberation Army Daily) .
The China Digital Times report pointed out that in the past decades, the front pages of all official newspapers have been decided by the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, including contents, layouts, and even the fonts. It is nothing new. However, it is rare that five major newspapers have very similar front pages in contents and layouts on the same day. It shows that the Chinese Communist Party has recently been asserting control of the media to an unusual degree.
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