After two days of front pages that commemorated the tragedy of the Yushu Earthquake using black and white tones, China’s newspapers are mostly back to normal today: colorful front pages focus on local stories and largely ignore the earthquake relief effort.
Today’s Shanghai Morning Post in particular makes up for lost time. After somber front pages on Wednesday and Thursday, today’s front page is loud and ad-laden. Red headlines are normally reserved for holidays and important developments in national politics, but today’s top headline is a stealth ad for Gome (国美), an electronics retailer. The second “headline” is an ad for Yongle (永乐), a Shanghai-based appliance retailer which was acquired by Gome in 2006.
That deal was shepherded by Gome founder Huang Guangyu (黄光裕), once China’s richest man. Huang is currently on trial in Beijing for stock manipulation, a piece of news that many other newspapers saw fit to feature on the front page.
The only actual news item on the front page concerns how a “second home” may be defined under new rules for property loans that will be announced soon. Below that is a teaser for the paper’s seven-page special section on the Shanghai World Expo, which opens in just eight days.