Authorities have ordered news websites to play down coverage of the disastrous fire on Monday in Shanghai. A news portal editor confirmed that they had received a directive from the State Council Information Office by midnight on Monday ordering all websites to cut back coverage of the fire by 'taking it down from news headlines, removing all comments lashing out at the government on bulletin boards, especially paying attention to the expression of public opinion through microblogging'. The websites were ordered to carry only stories from Xinhua. The fire lasted from mid-afternoon until early evening at the 28-storey building, the government said. Updates of reporters' microblogs were quickly removed, with orders of 'no speculation' for the print medium. Reporters' efforts to dig up more details of the accident were hampered at a funeral home, where some victims' families were identifying bodies. Three reporters from mainland and foreign media were held back for about 40 minutes at the Longhua Funeral Home in Xuhui district by security guards who demanded their identity cards for photocopying and told them to write positive stories. The reporters were finally let go after a newspaper called the municipal news office for assistance. But they were still not allowed to interview victims' families. This year, authorities ordered media gags on a killing spree of children and on the death toll from an explosion in Nanjing , Jiangsu. Although authorities have seemed to improve in handling media coverage of disasters, Song Shinan, a media analyst based in Sichuan , said they had not fundamentally changed in handling disasters. 'They still prefer feeding journalists the information, so they can stay in control,' Song said. 'As long as there is no press freedom and an ever-lengthening list of online sensitive words, there won't be adequate exchange of information between government and media.'