Kudos to journalists at the outspoken and popular Southern People Weekly, who put reviled Japanese politician Shintaro Ishihara on its front cover last week. Government censors should also be praised for allowing the copies to hit the newsstands, even though they later censored the online version.
For those who don't know Ishihara, the governor of Tokyo since 1999, he is downright anti-communist, and a far-right nationalist, sexist and racist, to name but a few tags often used to describe him.
He openly advocates the splitting of China, supports Taiwan's independence from the mainland, denies the 1937 Nanking Massacre took place, constantly and openly criticises the Chinese government, and deliberately angers mainland authorities by inviting the Dalai Lama and former Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui to Tokyo.
Until the 14-page package about him in last week's Southern People Weekly, Ishihara's name was mentioned in the mainland media only in reports in which he was the pinata of ferocious attacks for his far-right comments against the Chinese government.
Indeed, the magazine broke a long-standing taboo under which the mainland media are not supposed to interview or play up stories of people who openly criticise or disagree with the central government, for fear of glorifying their views.
The weekly's story proved that view wrong by offering objective, responsible and professional coverage on a subject that has been seldom explored, just as its editors have promised.