Beijing, Dec. 30 (Reuters): About 100 Beijing News reporters walked out in protest at this week’s dismissal of the top editor, the latest victim of China’s strict media controls, industry sources said today.

Disgruntled journalists also displayed their anger through a photograph in the paper showing a flock of birds flying through dark skies above the newspaper’s office, with one bird leading. “The sky may not be very clear, but they will still fly into the distance with their mission close to their hearts,” said a note.

Beijing News editor-in-chief Yang Bin was abruptly removed two days ago without any official explanation.

Today’s acts of defiance were the latest in a long struggle between the Communist Party, which tries to control information, and China’s newspapers and magazines, which want to attract readers and revenue with bold reporting.

A Beijing editor said propaganda officials singled out the Beijing News for criticism at a December 6 meeting, where it was decided that “city tabloids” like the News should “strengthen Party control” and bow to the wishes of propaganda officials. In recent years, the stolid Guangming Daily and People’s Daily in Beijing, and other propaganda broadsheets, have turned to new tabloids as profit-makers.

In turn, these tabloids have sometimes defied censors by appealing to central pat-ronage. The Beijing News “com-mitted errors in the orientation of opinion” and was a “recidivist”, officials said.