According to the book "The Tiananmen Papers", on the morning of April 27, Hu Qili (Politburo Standing Committee member in charge of news and public opinion) and Rui Xingwen (secretary of the Central Committee Secretariat) asked newspaper heads to participate in a forum. Attendees included people from Xinhua News Agency, "People's Daily", and "Guangming Daily", among others. At the meeting, the newspaper heads said that it was difficult to grasp exactly where the boundaries lie in reporting on the student movement. In addition, the news had been suppressed over the prior few days, which had resulted in the newspapers being criticized by the public, and the students starting to refuse interviews because their remarks were not being published. Hu Qili responded, "Newspaper editors-in-chief have the right to decide what to report or not to report. It is not necessary to ask for instructions on everything." Rui Xingwen added, "There are indeed many aspects on the news front that need to be reformed. The system cannot remain the same for decade upon decade. News reform is the general trend, and is what the people long for." The two also agreed to open dialog with journalists, so long as the scope remained appropriate.

However, according to Zhang Wanshu's book "The Big Bang of History: A Complete Record of the June 4th Incident", after the authorities agreed to Xinhua News Agency's report on the student demonstrations, the Beijing Municipal Party Committee nonetheless requested that the Committee personally write the story. It was then revised by Hu Qili and reviewed by Li Ximing (then-secretary of the Beijing Committee). In the evening, when the manuscript was sent back to Xinhua News Agency, Mu Qing (then-president of Xinhua News Agency) decided to rewrite the story in a completely objective way, including both what had happened at the march and how government spokespeople had responded. On the 28th, all the major Beijing newspapers gave relatively complete and objective reports on the April 27 march. China Central Television even reported on the demonstration as a top-billed story in the national news broadcast at noon. Students and the general public generally had positive attitudes toward this.

References: Zhang Wanshu, "The Big Bang of History: A Complete Record of the June 4th Incident"; "The Tiananmen Papers"; "[八九天安門事件大事記("Timeline of the 1989 Tian'anmen Square Incident")(Chinese)]" (https://blog.bnn.co/hero/201104/wurenhua/18_1.shtml)