The People's Daily is the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, providing direct information on the policies and positions of the government to its readers. During the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, People's Daily played an important role in changing the course of events, especially its April 26 Editorial that provoked great tension between the government and the students when the movement was slowly abating after Hu Yaobang's memorial on April 25. As an official newspaper, its attitude toward the government and the student protestors changed multiple times as the newspaper leadership team had to balance between reporting the truth and staying in line with its higher authority, the Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party, according to the then deputy chief editor, Lu Chaoqi. After the death of Hu Yaobang (April 16 to April 25) After Hu's death on April 15, 1989, thousands of students in Beijing gathered together at the Xinhua Gate to commemorate him and his contributions. On April 21, People's Daily published an editorial, “The current big picture is to maintain social stability (维护社会稳定是当前大局),” condemning that “there were a group of people who used the death of Hu as an excuse to attack the party and government” and “a small handful of people incited the troubles and purposely led the general public into social disorder.” This pro-government editorial triggered students' dissatisfaction toward dictatorship and corrupted officials, as the editorial intentionally discouraged people from commemorating Hu by picturing the memorials as unlawful demonstrations. Yet, this editorial resulted in more students participating in the strike and memorializing Hu. The situation became more chaotic as a number of criminals in different cities took advantage of the movement to raid shops and attack police officers, reported by the People's Daily on April 24. Widening the gulf (April 26 to May 3) On April 26, People's Daily released an important editorial titled “It is necessary to take a clear-cut stand against turmoil (必须旗帜鲜明地反对动乱).” The content was derived from the previous Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) meeting with Deng Xiaoping, which portrayed the student movement as an anti-party, unlawful turmoil that aimed at bringing down the CCP and top leaders. The student protesters, however, viewed the April 26 Editorial as a misinterpretation of their will and asked the government to redefine their pro-democracy movement as a patriotic and lawful protest. Many people viewed this editorial as the