South China Morning Post Closes its Chinese-Language Websites Without Warning

Things just keep getting worse and worse for Hong Kong’s paper of record.

Now, if you try to log onto South China Morning Post‘s Chinese-language news site or lifestyle site you are redirected to the paper’s English-language website and informed that SCMP’s Chinese-language services have been closed in order to better “integrate resources.” The message concludes, “We thank you for your past support.”

And just like that years of Chinese-language reporting by the SCMP has been wiped out. Current and former employees told Quartz that they were not told in advance about the decision to close the site. This is backed up by the fact that SCMP’s Chinese-language news site, nanzao.com, was still posting stories on Facebook as late as this afternoon.

Meanwhile, a SCMP spokesperson told Quartz that the closure would help the company to “align resources towards further growth.” HKFP cites a Now TV report claiming that at an internal meeting SCMP management asserted that their main focus was on English-language readers…(read more)

Source: Shanghaiist