Bill Bishop, the editor of Sinocism, a daily online newsletter about news media coverage of China, wrote on Monday that “Chinese media is all over the story in a remarkably transparent contrast to today’s haze in Beijing.”

Mr. Bishop, who is also a columnist for the DealBook blog of The New York Times, wrote: “Clearly it is impossible to pretend that the air is not polluted or that the health risks are not significant, so are the propaganda authorities just recognizing reality in allowing coverage? Or is there something more going on here, as perhaps the new government wants to both demonstrate a commitment to transparency and accountability as well as use this crisis to further the difficult reforms toward a more sustainable development model?”

China Youth Daily, a state-run newspaper, published a scathing signed commentary on Monday under the headline “Lack of Responsive Actions More Choking Than the Haze and Fog.” The commentary questioned basic economic policies and the China growth model: “This choking, dirty and poisonous air forces the Chinese to rethink the widespread, messy development model.”

Global Times, a newspaper that often defends the party, said in an editorial that the government in the past had erred by releasing pollution information in a “low-key way.” It said: “In the future, the government should publish truthful environmental data to the public. Let society participate in the process of solving the problem.”

On Saturday, when a Twitter feed from the United States Embassy rated the air in central Beijing an astounding 755 on an air quality scale of 0 to 500, China Central Television, the main state network, devoted a large part of its 7 p.m. newscast to the pollution. That night, the Beijing government reported alarming levels of a potentially deadly particulate matter called PM 2.5; in some districts, it exceeded 900 micrograms per cubic meter, on par with some days of the killer smog in London in the mid-20th century.