The year 2008 began and ended with news of the legal and other troubles of reporters. Some were muckrakers spattered with mud, others were targeted by some local officials intolerant of media criticism.

Illustration by Zhou Tao

This phenomenon, all too common, suggests that a group of people once looked up to as "uncrowned kings" are plying a risky trade.

On January 4 last year, police from Xifeng County in northeast China's Liaoning Province trekked nearly 1,000 kilometers to Beijing to subpoena Zhu Wenna, a reporter for Faren (The Legal Person) magazine.

Zhu was accused of libeling county Party secretary Zhang Zhiguo in an expose published in the January issue of the magazine.

Zhu indicated that Zhang had ordered a businesswoman surnamed Zhao imprisoned for sending a satirical text message after her gas station was demolished without proper compensation.

After overwhelming cyberspace condemnation, Zhang was stripped of his post in early February. The case against Zhu was dropped.

But later developments suggest it might be premature to celebrate.

In November, in a final verdict, the court upheld the initial sentence against Zhao, the businesswoman whose grievances Zhu aired in her article.

That same month, it was revealed that the disgraced Zhang had been appointed chief for a railway project, and he was sacked again after wave of cyber outrage.

It seems that by December we had become inured to reports of detention or arrest of reporters.

A casual investigation suggests that during one week of December no less than three reporters were in varying stages of judicial procedures.

On December 1, reporter Guan Jian from the Internet Newspaper disappeared at his hotel in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, while investigating a property dispute. Two weeks later police from Hebei Province notified Guan's family that Guan had been arrested for taking bribes.

On December 4, the Xinghualing District Prosecutor in Taiyuan took away Li Min, a CCTV reporter, from her home in Beijing, accusing her of taking 200,000 yuan (US$29,100) in bribes.

That same day Jing Jianfeng, a reporter for Democracy and Law newspaper, stood on charges of harboring a criminal, obstructing the performance of official duties, and bribe-taking. Jing had published an expose about a mafia-like group in a local coal mining business.

As a matter of fact, all the accusations concerned the whistleblower (later convicted) whose grievances Jing addressed in his article.

There are also cases of reporters simply as victims of retaliatory attack.

The latest issue of Democracy and the Legal System magazine relates how reporter Shi Jian suffered at the hands of the former Party secretary of Hebei Province Cheng Weigao (disciplined in 2003) and his minions.

In 1996, Shi, then editor and publisher of China Development magazine, treated some officials to a dinner, and Shi made some casual remarks about Cheng over cups of liquor.

The price Shi paid for his indiscretions: Seven years' imprisonment, on charge of corruption, forgery, and speculation.

While Shi was doing time, his lawyer consulted top legal expert Xia Jiajun, who reviewed Shi's files and suspected something was wrong.

After repeatedly petitioning the National People's Congress, in June 2007 Shi was cleared of all charges.

Professor Xia exclaimed that "justice ultimately prevails over evil," seeing journalist Shi's vindication as signaling the progress of democracy and the triumph of rule of law in China.

The spate of arrests of reporters on bribery charges might have been motivated by the desire to silence critical voices, but reporters' vulnerability also provokes thought about journalistic ethics.

Although popular disgust with official corruption runs high, we have to admit that not all reporters are paragons of the virtues they seek to safeguard: honesty and integrity. These ethical shortcomings afford vengeful officials ample ammunition to launch counterattacks.

It is open secret that business reporters routinely receive red envelopes or seasonal gifts for favorable coverage of corporate events.

They are also frequently invited on business-sponsored junkets.

Legal expert and veteran journalist Zhan Jiang believes that some more mature newspapers usually adhere to professional journalistic standards by drawing a clear line between editorial content and sales.

There are other newspapers, however, that publish flattering articles in exchange for advertising.

In many publications, the "advertorial" is already an accepted form of reportage, and these promotional items are not labeled as such.

In some newspapers, reporters also double as salespersons, making publication a market-driven affair.

Some even extort money by threatening to publish negative reports.

Solving this problem will require a strong sense of self-discipline on the part of media professionals, but a comprehensive solution appears elusive at this stage.

Gone are the days of public-spirited idealists - and the more effective strategy may be to appeal to the self-interest of reporters: In this risky business of journalism, being clean affords its practitioners the best self-protection.

(Shanghai Daily January 8, 2009)