Beijing: Four journos of the Chinese state news agency stand suspended after a typographic slip suggesting that Chinese President Xi Jinping was resigning.
Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post reported that the staff at the state-run China News Service switched two Chinese characters with similar sounds, accidentally changing the word in question to write that Xi`s remarks were a “resignation” not a “speech”.
The error came in a Friday story about a speech Xi gave during a China-Africa summit in Johannesburg last week and some news sites published the report in its original form before later retracting it.
Since Xi`s ascension to the head of the Communist Party in 2012, he has increasingly become the focus of fawning adulation by state media, leading some experts to say that a nascent cult of personality may be developing around him.
It is said that last Friday, during his Africa trip, Xi`s name appeared in 11 out of 12 headlines on the front page of the Communist Party`s official newspaper, the People`s Daily.
