The authorities have put a halt to an annual year-end special by Southern Weekly celebrating good reporting, a reporter says. The reporter confirmed a rumour circulating online that the ninth annual 'paying a tribute to the media' news award had been ordered to stop. It was supposed to come out this Friday. 'The order came from the top,' said the reporter, who works for the outspoken newspaper, also known as Southern Weekend. The previous specials featured 15 awards to different kinds of media, ranging from print to television, online media and books, for their reporting on Chinese issues. Chang Ping, a columnist and winner of the good column writing category in 2007, said the special had broken the official news awards monopoly. 'It has a significant influence in the media industry and highly valued by news people who long for a relatively objective and fair news award.' Jiao Guobiao, a former journalism professor at Peking University, said freedom of expression and publication had deteriorated over the past 10 years.