In June last year, a mine explosion in Fanzhi county, Shanxi province, trapped all 38 miners in the shaft. No one survived. Last month, Xinhua revealed that 11 journalists had received bribes to under-report the casualties.
On the night of the accident, the mine operators decided that the magnitude of the disaster must be kept quiet and concocted a story that only two miners had died and four were injured. Ten miners, who were not working that day, were coached to pretend that they were survivors. The official investigators accepted the false testimonies and issued a casualty report.
Four Xinhua reporters based in Taiyuan, the provincial capital, sought confirmation from county officials after learning of the accident, instead of heading to the mine.
At the county government office, they were wined and dined. The magistrate, acting on the advice of the party's publicity chief, who said that the accident would reflect badly on the local government, tapped into public funds to pay off the reporters with 40,000 yuan (HK$37,600) in cash and gold ingots valued at 9,600 yuan.
But in the meantime, reporters from the Huashang News in neighbouring Shaanxi province, and from the China Youth Daily, rushed to the mining town and reported not only the full tragedy but also how the operators had moved, burned and buried the bodies retrieved from the site of the explosion.
The Xinhua headquarters, shocked by the expose, launched an internal probe and an overall investigation of the cover-up.
As well as the four Xinhua reporters, four from the Shanxi Economic Daily and the Shanxi Legal Daily, and three from Shanxi Life were found to have taken bribes, totalling 74,600 yuan. Many suspected that the number of journalists having taken bribes was far higher after it became known that government agents had been posted at train and bus stations to pay reporters to turn back.