Looking up to The New York Times. (Flickr Creative Commons: ScooteRoo)

The New York Times’ Public Editor Margaret Sullivan wrote a post that reads between the lines of the Chinese government’s censorship of the Times’ Chinese-language site.  China blocked the site after the paper ran a story looking into the extreme wealth of the Chinese prime minster’s family.

Sullivan’s post looks into how the Times’ decision to run the predictably explosive piece creates a rift between the editorial staff and the paper’s advertisers, whose pricey ads aren’t seeing the light of day in China.  “I’m very proud of this work,” Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. said to Sullivan.  “Our business is to publish great journalism.  Does this have a business impact?  Of course.”