The Press: And Then There Were None

The only English-language newspaper left in Shanghai, of the four flourishing when the Communists took over, is the British-owned, 99-year-old North China Daily News. Last week the Communists banned distribution of news by foreign news agencies, left “the Old Lady of the Bund” with little news to print.

Instead, Editor R. T. Peyton-Griffin ran a story about a minor squabble between an Englishwoman and a Japanese consul 28 years ago, articles on Philosopher Lao-tse and Hittite hieroglyphics. But though the paper was being starved to death, it could not just lie down and die. In a Page-One box, Peyton-Griffin plaintively announced: “This journal is petitioning the appropriate authorities for permission to cease publication.”