Southern Metropolis Daily (SMD) is a for-profit tabloid newspaper located in Guangzhou city, China,[1] and its circulation is throughout the greater Guangdong and Pearl River Delta region.

[1] SMD is a constituent of the Nanfang Media Group, which is under the supervision of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The newspaper publishes daily, with 72 pages and multiple sections relating to consumer products, international affairs, sports, and other topics of public interest.

"[2] in 2005, Cheng Yizhong was the laureate of the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize for his resistance to Chinese censorship laws and police corruption.

[8] The Nanfang Media Group attempted to revive the newspaper however it failed due to limited private funding from advertisers and investors.

[11][12] For example, automobile sales would be featured on Monday, and real estate agencies would advertise new property listings within the daily edition on Thursdays.

[17] SMD engages with the local public by issuing surveys and conducting street interviews with citizens in order to provide multiple perspectives on reportings.

[19] SMD is known for its colourful photographs and its populist style of writing, often breaching censorship laws in order to portray an uncensored depiction to the public.

[2] SMD has an investigative style, often incorporating interviews with victims of crimes, police officials and people related to matters of the public interest.

This was due to the front cover article from 26 December which depicted a Guangdong province politician Xu Shaohua having been punished by the Chinese government for a mining accident.

[21] In January 2004, SMD deputy chief editor Li Minying and General Manager Yu Huafeng were forced to resign by state officials after being arrested and detained by the Chinese police due to a breach of Chinese censorship laws; having had reported on the alleged police torture of Sun Zhigang.

[21] In 2010, the director of the SMD column of Chinese history, Zhu Di, published an article entitled "Patriotism does not mean love for the Royal Court."

[22] On 29 March 2016 an experienced editor and journalist of SMD publicly resigned from the newspaper stating that he could not work under the government censorship laws.

[23] On 16 December 2008, deputy chief editor of SMD Jiang Yiping was demoted from his position to a junior journalist role for unspecified reasons.

[2] On 20 March 2003 SMD published this false information in the form of a government statement in their daily edition as per the censorship laws in China.

[12] In response, on 4 April 2003, these editors quoted the deputy minister of Health Gao Qiang who allegedly stated that the SARS epidemic was out of control throughout China and included this statement in the daily edition of SMD.

[12] In response, Zang Dejiang who was the part chief of Guangdong at the time ordered Cheng, YU, and Lin to report to him in Guangzhou City.

On 2 December at approximately 11 AM,[34] Yu Huafeng was arrested in the breakroom of SMD publishing headquarters pending an investigation of fraud and treason against the Chinese government.

[2] On 22 March 2004, Yu Huafeng was convicted of Fraud and treason in the Supreme People's Court in Beijing[2] and sentenced to a minimum of twelve years in a Liangxiang prison in Tianjin Municipality district.

[35][2] Cheng reported receiving severe psychological abuse in the form of mocking and unlawful solitary confinement periods with no sunlight in his cell.

[37] In late April, mass awareness had been spread and fourteen former and current provincial party chiefs demanded a review of the evidence against Cheng, Yu and Li.

[38] Between 10 June and 12 July during the FIFA world cup of 1998, SMD broke a national record as the longest coverage of a sports event in history.

[2] This assisted SMD in establishing themselves as a dominant newspaper in the Guangdong Region as China's football followers were amongst the largest in the world at the time.