Wen Wei Po was founded in Shanghai in January 1938. The Hong Kong edition was first published in 6 September 1948. In the 1980s, Xinhua News Agency, which served as the de facto Chinese embassy to Hong Kong, reduced its control over Wen Wei Po to reflect China's guarantee of "one country, two systems" after sovereignty over Hong Kong is transferred to China in 1997. In 1989, Wen Wei Po published an editorial that criticised the People's Liberation Army for their crackdown of protesters in Tiananmen Square. Lee Tze-chung, the president of the newspaper since 1951 was dismissed, and editor-in-chief Kam Yiu-yu went into exile in the United States. Following the dismissals, Wen Wei Po received financial support from the Chinese government to repair the image of China following the military crackdown in Beijing.
Content
Wen Wei Po has around 48 pages every day with sections including news, sports and entertainment. Compared with other newspapers in Hong Kong, it has more coverage of mainland China politics, economy, society, education and culture, but fewer entertainment or human interest stories. Recently the newspaper has started sending journalists to gather news about PRC leaders' visits around China.
Editorial position
Wen Wei Po has been described as pro-China and leftist. The paper is also considered as a "cleaner" paper as it includes fewer sensational reports and bloody pictures. Its reports on issues other than politics and China are considered as more reliable. According to The Challenge of Hong Kong's Reintegration With China, a book written by Ming K. Chan, Wen Wei Po is a "mouthpiece" of the PRC government.
Space and military news
Wen Wei Po is known to periodically leak first hand information about the PRC's space program and military buildup. Typical examples are the advanced launch date of the Shenzhou 7 mission, information revealed on occasion of the 60th anniversary of the journal's establishment, space shuttle program or aircraft carrier program. In this regard, the Wen Wei Po shares the privilege of being provided with exclusive high-tech news with newsgroups targeting the same readership such as the Hong Kong Da Gong Journal or the Beijing Youth Daily.
Market
Wen Wei Po is authorised for distribution in Macau and mainland China. Tourists can get copies of Wen Wei Po easily from hotels in the larger mainland cities. Wen Wei Po has a greater circulation in the mainland than in Hong Kong. As one of the most popular Hong Kong newspapers in the mainland, Wen Wei Po publishes a lot of advertisements from enterprises of different cities in the mainland. Even for the online version, there are a lot of mainland advertisements, and the newspaper's advertisement revenue is mainly supported by the mainland China market.
''Wen Wei Po'' in the world
The newspaper's 33 official agencies in the mainland, including Beijing, Shanghai and Yunnan, help the paper gather news in the mainland and establish relationships with local officials/advertisers. It also has correspondents in major cities in the world, such as Tokyo, London and New York. Wen Wei Po has five overseas editions. The latest edition is the Philippines edition, established in Manila on 8 October 2003. The other overseas editions are published in San Francisco, USA, Jakarta in Indonesia, Toronto in Canada and Bangkok in Thailand. It also has a European edition and a flight edition.
