Wasn’t the year of the Olympics supposed to herald a new era of integrity in Chinese journalism? It has and it hasn’t. The Sichuan earthquake inspired some courageous Chinese reporters to defy censors in pursuit of the ugly truth about building standards. But government interference isn’t the only thing getting in the way of truth telling. In China’s world of black journalism countless smaller tragedies routinely get shoved under the rug. Reporters race to the scene of coal mine accidents not to investigate them but to collect hush money. The more dead miners, the fatter the payoffs, especially for correspondents carrying the labels of leading national and provincial news outlets, say media experts and Chinese reporters.

These bribes are part of a widespread culture of checkbook journalism in China, from reporters taking handouts at corporate press events to broadcasters selling precious airtime on the evening news to reporters blackmailing targets with the threat of exposure. Unlike government censorship, this corruption eats at one of China’s more beleaguered professions from within its ranks. The trading of favors for cash is so prevalent that, like the honest cop in a corrupt police unit, an ethical journalist risks the scorn of colleagues.

“For those journalists who never take red envelopes, it will be very hard for them to deal with their coworkers,” says Zhan Jiang, journalism dean at China Youth University for Political Sciences in Beijing. “Other journalists will treat them like enemies, and other people would think that they are very dangerous, that ‘They could report on us.’”

Read more about media corruption via CDT.

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Put bluntly: The climate for China’s journalists is worsening, and it doesn’t have anything to do with Google, or with the Chinese Communist Party’s pretense to absolute ideological control of information. The problem is not that the party is scrubbing the Internet to remove stories it deems negative. The problem is the corrupt network between business and government, which places unwarranted pressure on journalists and editors. “It’s no longer about abstract propaganda discipline,” Bandurski says. “These days it’s about specific money and power interests.”

Case in point: In 2008, a newspaper called the China Business Post published a story that exposed malfeasance at the regional branch of one of China’s biggest state banks. The bankers protested — to powerful effect. One of their allies turned out to be a well-placed party chief who was tied to the businessmen through personal relationships. The next thing the journalists knew, the government had suspended the paper.

“The network of agencies devoted to media control in China, including the propaganda department, are now, more than ever before, mediators and players in a vast web of power and profit,” Bandurski wrote in an analysis of the incident published in March 2009 in the Far Eastern Economic Review. “They no longer dish out just propaganda dictates; they dish out personal and professional favors too.”

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Later last year, a dozen journalists were discovered to have taken hush money totaling 2.6 million yuan, according to a Hebei Provincial government report released January 9. Local authorities in Weixian, Hebei Province bribed journalists, including four from national media, to silence a mining accident that occurred July 14, 2008. Crowds of journalists lined up for hush money to be handed out after a local coal mine accident in Shanxi Province Nov. 3, 2008.

As these cases show, the lure of money continues to dull the consciences of a few journalists. But as for whether only the journalists should be responsible, Professor Zhan Jiang from the Beijing Foreign Studies University said that the brunt of criticism ought to be directed at local government officials.

Officials in areas with intense mining, such as Hebei and Shanxi, are frequently found attempting to conceal accidents from the public. Professor Zhan said local authorities in mining areas have come to rely on concealing work safety accidents through cutting information off from the public and using public funds for bribes. Zhan says this systemic corruption creates “professional blackmail journalists.”

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On January 20, 2010, when the China Youth Daily reporter arrived at this coal mine almost 30 kilometers away from the Weixian county city, it was snowing hard. The white snow was slowly covering up this blackish abandoned coal mine.

For the families of the 35 coal mine workers who lost their lives during this mining disaster, their sorrows could not be covered up as quickly. The responsibility of the relevant local leaders who covered up the incident could not be covered up either. And most of all, the scandal of the waves of reporters who showed up after the incident to demand “shut-up” fees must not be covered up.

On January 9, 2010, the Hebei provincial government reported on the progress of the investigation of the 7.14 mining disaster at the Liajiawa coal mine in Weixian county. At the moment, 48 persons were held responsibility and referred to the judiciary for criminal prosecution. The former Weixian county party secretary Li Hongxing was sentenced to 13 years in jail. The former Weixian county mayor Qi Jianhua was sentenced to 14 years in jail. 18 other persons in Zhangjiakou city and Weixian county were punished according to party and political discipline. Of these, the former Weixian county party publicity department director, its former deputy-director and its former information officer deputy director were expelled from the Party and fired from their jobs.

On January 20, an old cadre who has been paying attention to this case for a long time told the China Youth Daily reporter: “The relevant officials are being held accountable. Most of the cases have been tried. But why aren’t they going after the reporters who asked for ‘shut-up’ fees? Why won’t they even publish the list of those who received ‘shut-up’ fees?”

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One after another, participants voiced their concern for the precarious livelihood of the young journalists, especially those working in inland and remote areas.

“I hope the government can intervene and think of a way to help raise the income of journalists,”said Liu Fang, a second-year student at a graduate journalism program of Beijing Foreign Studies University.

Liu Yiran next recalled her seven straight hours covering a poisonous gas leak at a chemical plant. Despite suffering a severe headache and numbness in the mouth, she was asked to stay for live coverage by China Central Television.

“We have no subsidies to pay for these health hazard stories,” she said in a telephone interview after the workshop. Liu’s salary is 2,000 yuan a month after tax. The average GDP per head of Lanzhou residents is 2,130 yuan per month last year.

“I have to work extremely hard to support myself. I also need to use my own money to maintain good relations with my sources for exclusive stories,” she said.

“If a company wants to offer me a red envelope with a couple of hundred yuan in cash for me to write a promotional story, I don’t see why I should refuse it.”

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Li Junqi, former director of the Hebei bureau of Farmers’ Daily, is believed to be the first of the 10 reporters involved in the scandal to receive criminal punishment.

Thirty-four miners and a rescuer died after a blast ripped through the Lijiawa mine in Yuxian county on July 14, 2008, three weeks before the start of the Beijing Olympics.

According to local media reports, mine bosses relocated bodies, destroyed evidence and paid the journalists 2.6 million yuan ($380,000) to cover up the disaster, keeping the tragedy from appearing in newspapers for 85 days.

Following a State Council probe into the accident, the 10 journalists confessed to taking bribes, resulting in the prosecution of 48 local officials.

The identities of the 10 journalists have not been made public, but reports claim Guan Jian, a Beijing journalist from China Internet Weekly, and Li were among them.

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This winter has brought another of China’s seasonal purges of fakery in its news media. The government is cracking down on “fake news reports,” and it plans to stamp out the problem of “fake journalists” by getting tougher about press accreditation.

But once again, all of these official measures overlook the fundamental issue driving media corruption in China.

In an environment where there are too few protections for conscientious journalists, and where the party’s chief prerogative remains the control of information, journalism is about monopoly and privilege rather than professional obligation — and that invites abuse, whether one has an official press card or not.

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Officials in Hebei province’s Yuxian county paid journalists a total of 2.6 million yuan ($380,000) not to report the July 14, 2008, accident, in which 34 miners and one rescuer were killed, the China Daily said.

In addition to bribing reporters, officials silenced relatives of the dead with large compensation payments and threats of retribution if they talked, the paper said. The measures managed to keep the accident silent for 85 days, the paper said, without saying how it eventually became known.

It’s fairly common for officials to pay such bribes to keep higher ranking leaders from finding out about disasters and to avoid being fired or handed demerits. Often the payments are disguised as advertising buys or subscription fees.

Yuxian officials had even more reason to keep the accident silent because it struck just three weeks before the Beijing Olympic Games in the midst of a national safety campaign, when the central government was bent on painting only the most positive picture of China to the world.

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The scope and reach of the criminal offense of bribery (受贿罪) has never been clear in China. But the lines become even murkier when the charge is applied to one of the country’s most nebulous professions: journalism. Are Chinese journalists “government officials” or “state personnel” to whom stiffer penalties should apply? Or are they performing ordinary service jobs outside the purview of the Criminal Law on bribery involving state officials?

These questions, which we saw in the Meng Huaihu (孟怀虎) case two years ago, have been replayed this month in the trial of Fu Hua (傅桦), a former reporter for Shanghai’s China Business News. They concern us here because they touch on more fundamental questions about press freedom, the role of journalism and journalists in China, and related issues such as the need (as some say) for a press law that might clear up ambiguities about journalists’ rights and obligations.

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Despite his short stature and small frame, 42-year old Dai Xiaojun exuded an air of agility and strength that he cultivated through nine years of service in the army.

With that now behind him, he describes himself as a shutterbug, a journalist, or one who records life.

He has worked for three publications, the latest being the West Times, a weekly mainland newspaper covering the development of western China.

But none of his previous work made him known to nearly so many people as his most recent: When a batch of both real and fraudulent journalists swarmed the site of a fatal Shanxi mining accident that occurred on September 20, demanding hush money from the mining company, Dai photographed the entire scene. His photographs circulated around the internet, creating an instant scandal.

But along with story’s fame came trouble. The West Times denied it employed Dai, claiming that he was a correspondent without a labor contract. Threatening calls came one after another. Netizens mocked it as a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

This time, local reporters were silent on Dai’s behalf, while their peers in other provinces applauded his bravery.

But the West Times’ statement about Dai cast a shadow over his identity, and the public began questioning his intentions. Was he also a blackmailer in the guise of a journalist? Did he expose the whole thing because he failed to get the money he demanded?

The EO interviewed Dai on November 4th at the Guofang Hotel in Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi.

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