(Credit: the Guardian, screenshot)

The Guardian reported that Beijing’s propaganda bureau will now be in charge of newspapers the Beijing Times and the Beijing News.

According to the Guardian, the newspapers were just “overseen by state level propaganda authorities.”  The Beijing propaganda group could lead to more censorship, however reporters at the Beijing News were reportedly told “the move was intended to make the paper more influential,” the Guardian noted.

The Guardian suggested that the move was in response to the newspapers’ reporting on a “fatal high-speed train crash in Wenzhou in July.” (Read iMediaEthics’ August story about China’s Communist Party’s call for media to retract and censor stories about the crash here.)

Read more about the change and its potential effect on the newspapers here.