Journalists the world over are being hit by shrinking budgets and mass lay-offs, but the lot of state media reporters covering the mining industry is a particularly unhappy one. The case of Li Junqi of the Farmers' Daily exposed the delicate tightrope between ethics and profit many mainland journalists are forced to walk - and the harsh consequences if they get caught. Li, the paper's Hebei bureau chief, was one of 10 reporters who accepted 2.6 million yuan (HK$2.95 million) in hush money after a mining accident in Zhangjiakou in July 2008 that left 35 people dead. On December 31, Li was sentenced to 16 years in jail for taking 200,000 yuan from a Wei county government public relations official. Prosecutors also indicted Li for misappropriating 94,000 yuan between October 2006 and May 2008, which the paper's management earmarked as allowances for circulation staff. Li joins a long list of mainland reporters who were jailed last year for corruption. Dismissing the verdict as being legally unfounded, Zhou Ze, an appeal lawyer hired by Li's family, argued that his client did not actually take the money, but made a bargain with the PR official, in which the county government promised to subscribe to more than a certain number of copies of the paper for a year. The lawyer said that Li had handed the money to an accountant at the paper, but the court decided he could still access it and therefore regarded it as a bribe. Zhou dismissed the embezzlement charges, saying Li had acted within his capacity as bureau chief by allocating allowances to staff. The management of Farmers' Daily, a paper affiliated to the Ministry of Agriculture, refused to comment on the sentencing, but the case has shed light on practices in mainland media where journalists are forced to bring in ad revenue as well as report. Dai Xiaojun, a reporter with the West Times, published a set of photos in late 2008 showing dozens of reporters collecting hush money from a mine in Shanxi after an accident left one miner dead. It is common knowledge among mainland journalists that many reporters are involved in some level of extortion in the name of media supervision. In addition to this, a growing number of enterprising scammers have been caught pretending to be reporters and taking money. Dr Zhang Zhian from Fudan University's Journalism School said bureau reporters from media outlets affiliated to central government agencies were more likely to be offered payment as they were perceived to be more influential. Furthermore, they were also more amenable to it. 'The way these outlets operate, the bureaus are a source of revenue and they are given financial quotas to meet,' Zhang said. Zhou said his client's actions were questionable, but they did not constitute bribery or embezzlement. 'Even if he was guilty of bribe-taking, the PR official was guilty of bribery,' Zhou said. 'But has he been brought to justice?' Fu Hua, a former Beijing-based correspondent for China Business News, was jailed for three years last month for taking 30,000 yuan in bribes from the deputy manager of Jilin Civil Airports Group, who tipped him off about construction quality problems at Changchun Longjia airport.
