About The Paper

The Paper

The Paper, known in Chinese as Pengpai News (澎湃新闻, literally "Surging News"), is a Chinese digital newspaper based in Shanghai and published at thepaper.cn. Launched in July 2014, it is owned and run by the state-owned Shanghai United Media Group and is headquartered at 839 Yan'an West Road in Shanghai's Jing'an District. The Paper was created as a mobile-first news outlet at a moment when revenue from mainstream printed newspapers across China was in steep decline, and it was founded as an attempt to capture the fast-growing readership of mobile internet users. Within a short time it became one of the most closely watched experiments in Chinese digital journalism: a state-funded, party-overseen news organisation that built a large national audience through a smartphone app, a website and social media accounts, publishing hundreds of articles every day. Academic researchers have described Pengpai as the most ambitious and influential example of what they call the "state-preneurship" model of digital journalism innovation in China, and its format was later imitated by regional outlets across the country.

Origins in the Oriental Morning Post

The Paper began life as an offshoot of the Oriental Morning Post, a Shanghai commercial newspaper published by the Shanghai United Media Group. The choice of parent mattered. Founding executives later explained that the Oriental Morning Post was a relatively independent organisation with strong commercial elements, which made its newsroom easier to restructure than those of the group's more traditional party newspapers. The digital project was therefore incubated inside that newsroom, drawing on its reporters and editors while building an entirely new, internet-native product. The Oriental Morning Post itself dated from 2003 and had developed a reputation as one of Shanghai's more outspoken newspapers, noted in particular for its coverage of disasters such as the 2011 high-speed train crash in eastern China and the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. As the new digital operation grew, reporters were gradually transferred from the print title to The Paper over a period of years, in what managers described as an effort to remain relevant in the new media age. The print newspaper's fate was eventually settled at the end of 2016, when the Shanghai United Media Group resolved that the Oriental Morning Post would discontinue publication on 1 January 2017, with all of its original news reporting and opinion functions transferred to The Paper.

Launch in July 2014 and the mobile turn

The Paper was launched in July 2014, with its mobile app formally presented on 22 July 2014. Its stated ambition, captured in its slogan, was to be "an internet platform focused on political news, ideas and thoughts." The timing placed it just ahead of a national policy push: in August 2014, China's leadership called for the building of new media conglomerates with communicative power, public credibility and influence, and scholars have since treated Pengpai as a pilot test of that strategy, an attempt by state media to regain influence among audiences who were drifting away from legacy outlets toward varied and vociferous new media. The launch itself attracted attention well beyond the media industry. Chief executive Qiu Bing marked the app's debut with an unusually personal, nostalgic op-ed recalling a drunken night before his graduation in 1990, a piece that was widely shared on social networks and helped the new brand announce itself as something different from a conventional party newspaper. The Paper also gained early popularity on social platforms after publishing a run of prominent stories on high-profile corruption cases during its first month.

Ownership, funding and the Shanghai United Media Group

The Paper's publisher is the Shanghai United Media Group, the state media company formed on 28 October 2013 through the merger of Shanghai's Jiefang Daily Press Group and the Wenhui-Xinmin United Press Group, overseen by the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. The Paper received a large amount of initial funding, speculated in reporting to have been anywhere from US$16 million to US$64 million, of which RMB 100 million (approximately US$14.5 million) was reported to have been provided by the government through the Cyberspace Administration of China. Academic accounts give a similar picture of a completely state-funded project, with the Shanghai government initially providing an estimated RMB 300 million. The ownership structure widened in December 2016, when, on 28 December, six wholly state-owned or state-invested Shanghai firms made a strategic equity investment in Shanghai Oriental Newspaper Industry Company Limited, the operator of The Paper, amounting to a total capital increase of 610 million yuan. Following that increase, Shanghai United Media Group's ownership stake in the operating company decreased from 100 percent to 82.2 percent, although the group retains ultimate control. Private-sector names were also associated with the project's early backing in some reporting, but the outlet has remained a state-owned and state-controlled publication throughout its life.

Editorial focus: politics, ideas and current affairs

Editorially, The Paper positioned itself around political news, ideas and thought, combining fast breaking-news coverage with commentary and longer reporting. International coverage of the outlet in its early years repeatedly noted that it covered contentious issues, including official corruption and a scandal involving improperly stored vaccines, subjects that helped establish its reputation among readers who wanted more than official announcements from a state outlet. At the same time, analysts have been clear about the framework within which it works: The Paper is overseen by the Chinese Communist Party and operates under the same censorship requirements as other mainland media, and its own editors have acknowledged that it must work within and be aligned with party values to survive. Scholars describe the result as a product of a consensus among a legitimacy-seeking party, professional journalists and a public hungry for quality information. Supporters quoted in media guides note that it breaks many stories that bring improvements to daily life by exposing wrongdoing, while critics place it firmly inside China's state media system. Both readings rest on the same verified foundation: it is a commercially styled, digitally native outlet wholly inside the state system.

How it publishes: website, app and social platforms

The Paper has no print edition. It publishes through its website at thepaper.cn, its smartphone app and major social media accounts, principally Weibo and WeChat. From its first year it operated as a round-the-clock newsroom: at its first anniversary on 22 July 2015 it reported a workforce of 356 people, compared with 104 at its print parent, and was producing about 150 pieces of news and opinion every day. Its Breaking News department alone had more than 70 reporters, editors and technology staff, publishing twenty-four hours a day through the app and social accounts. Academic case studies describe a staff of over three hundred journalists covering news nationwide and publishing hundreds of articles every day across the website, app and social media. By April 2016, when its English-language sister publication launched, The Paper said its smartphone app had been downloaded about 10 million times, a figure reported by The New York Times at the time. The combination of an owned app, a high-volume website and aggressive social distribution became the template that researchers later identified in regional imitators, from Chongqing's Upstream News to other provincial platforms modelled on the Pengpai approach.

Growth and influence in its first years

The Paper's rapid growth made it a reference point in debates about the future of Chinese journalism. Researchers writing in the International Journal of Press/Politics called it the early national success case of state-backed digital innovation and documented how at least eight regional copycat outlets were incubated in its image, usually inside more flexible, market-oriented media organisations. A separate study described The Paper and its clones as leading Chinese journalism into a new phase of influence-seeking state new media from 2014 onward. Its commercial-style presentation, heavy investment in original reporting and willingness to pursue corruption and public-safety stories distinguished it from older state portals that mainly republished wire copy. Observers in the foreign press likewise treated its launch as significant: People's Daily Online reported that the app created a buzz among media professionals, and Foreign Policy's account of the launch was syndicated internationally under headlines about the new website that had China buzzing. That influence was achieved while remaining a Shanghai-based operation: its headquarters stayed in Jing'an District even as its reporting remit became national in scope.

Sixth Tone and the English-language expansion

In 2016 The Paper extended its model to an international, English-speaking audience. In May 2016 — publicly launched on 6 April 2016 in most accounts — it introduced Sixth Tone, an English-language sister publication published by the Shanghai United Media Group and sharing The Paper's resources and parent company. Sixth Tone was designed to present a fresher side of China through deep features, timely news reports and rich commentary focused on the everyday realities of Chinese people's lives, in deliberate contrast to wire-style English news from Beijing. The move showed how The Paper had become the group's innovation platform: the Chinese-language outlet supplied the newsroom culture, the digital know-how and much of the reporting base from which an English magazine could be built. Sixth Tone went on to win multiple awards from the Society of Publishers in Asia and to be cited by Western media, extending the reach of the Shanghai group's journalism well beyond the Chinese-language market that The Paper itself serves.

The end of the print parent and later restructuring

The transfer of functions from the Oriental Morning Post on 1 January 2017 completed The Paper's transformation from experiment to flagship: the digital outlet absorbed the print paper's news reporting and opinion roles, and its staff, and the group continued without the morning title. The Paper's second decade has not been static. In February 2025 it significantly reduced its workforce, consolidating thirteen editing centres into six and terminating twenty portions of its news service along with fifteen social media profiles, according to its Wikipedia-documented history. The restructuring reflected the same pressures that had created The Paper a decade earlier — shifting audience habits and the economics of digital news — now applied to the digital pioneer itself. Throughout these changes the outlet continued publishing at thepaper.cn and through its app, retaining its position as the Shanghai United Media Group's principal national digital news brand alongside siblings such as Jiemian News and Eastday.

Place in China's digital media landscape

The Paper occupies a distinctive place among China's online news outlets. It is neither a commercial portal in the mould of Sina or Tencent News nor a central state wire like Xinhuanet; it is a municipally owned, nationally read digital newspaper whose experiment in state-funded, market-styled journalism has been studied around the world. Its history compresses the story of Chinese media in the 2010s: the decline of print revenue, the pivot to mobile apps, the state's determination to rebuild influential mainstream voices online, and the continuing tension between professional journalism and political oversight. For readers, it remains a high-volume source of Chinese political and current-affairs news, ideas and commentary, published from Shanghai by the Shanghai United Media Group. For researchers and rival publishers, it remains the original Pengpai model — the first news app launched in China by a traditional media organisation, and the benchmark against which later state digital outlets, including its own regional imitators, continue to be measured.