The Republic is Dayī's single largest newspaper and news media organisation, with a daily readership of over 4 million Dayīnese residents and about half a million foreigners. They are often considered a centrist publication, and most certainly are when compared to right-news media as
The Shanghai and
Yuán Quán News and left-news media as
The Fifth Star and
3-Mount. Nevertheless they have often been accused of a pro-government stance, based on the subsidization they receive from the Special Administrative Executive Diet and the tendency for NUC apparatchiks to opine in its pages.
With a staff of 2000 their Editor-in-Chief is one Chantel Mèng, a Dutch-Chinese journalist with a long history of investigative journalism. Her style has been described as 'globalist' and 'exploratory' for its inclusion of foreign news, with Dayī-specific news falling from half of all stories to a third in the four years she has been in the role. Despite this
The Republic still has the most comprehensive daily local news and is the only newspaper in the region to utilize an AGI in its general editing, giving them a reputation for polished and factual news. The AGI in question, affectionately known as Liberté, is snippy about other AGIs publishing in 'her' newspaper.
The newspaper's motto, though it has not appeared so much in recent years, is 'That's All You Need'. This has been mocked in many a form, particularly with regards to the generous thickness of their broadsheet, with the then editor of
The Fifth Star Jacob Tengku once saying 'If that's all you need, you've got diabetes'; and a long-running meme to see the many applications of the broadsheet beyond its purpose as a newspaper. So far, this has included boats, makeshift batons, table supports for increasingly ridiculous weights, a variety of silly fashion statements by the Dayīnese youth and in one instance an entire house was built from the paper.
They are a staple of the Dayīnese cityscape, indeed they blanket more homeless and precariat than the many charities attending them do. They are reportedly read by both the leader of the NUC, Gang Xuang, and the leader of the DNCP, Cao Feihung. They skitter about the hooves of mounted police and their ink drains into the gutters of the city's narrow streets. The blood of the nation.