July 31, 2014 5:14 PM
The announcement of a disciplinary investigation into Zhou Yongkang on Tuesday has unleashed a wave of news content prepared by Chinese media during the months in which his fate was known but unofficial. The permissible angle of coverage has been made clear by propaganda authorities, and lingering censorship online shows that some aspects of the case remain off-limits. But the former domestic security chief and Politburo Standing Committee member, the highest official to fall in China in decades, can now be named outright, instead of by indirect references like “Zhou Bin’s father,” “Master Kang” or “You Know Who.” Global Times’ Chang Meng reports on the immediate appearance of pre-prepared material such as infographics:
These sophisticated designs, especially those developed by big news portals such as Sina and Netease, were clearly well-prepared and waiting for the news. They mostly illustrate Zhou’s intricate power networks, his family members, and a timeline of the downfall of his key protégés, which led to his own investigation step by step.
Meanwhile, Zhou’s name, which was a censored word on China’s search engines and social networks, was unbanned almost immediately.
A large number of investigative reports digging into the power-growing and money-making history of Zhou’s network, represented by a series of five stories published by caixin.com, went viral online Wednesday. [Source]
A piece on Caixin’s English site also describes the “opening of the media floodgates.” Its main Chinese site, like many others, has a special focus page on Zhou’s case presenting new reports and an impressive animated illustration of Zhou’s network alongside earlier material.
Surveying the melee at Reuters, Megha Rajagopalan noted that veiled coverage of Zhou’s case had received an apparent green light some months ago: