Journalists from various media organizations were paid a total of 125,700 yuan ($18,500) not to report on a mine accident in Shanxi province on Sept 20, the General Administration of Press and Publication said yesterday.

One of them, however, who claimed to be from a major news organization, was later found to be a fraud. He was paid 34,500 yuan by the Huozhou Coal and Electric Group.

His case has now been transferred to the judicial department for further investigation, the administration said in a statement yesterday.

Reporters from China Education Television Station, Shanxi Television Station, Shanxi Science Herald, Green China and Shanxi Legal were paid sums ranging from 2,000 to 19,200 yuan.

The accident occurred in Hongdong county in which one miner was killed. The owner of the mine, Li Tianzhi, failed to report the accident to the authorities.

"We are firmly against journalists accepting bribes and people posing as journalists," Li Ruifeng, head of the Shanxi province bureau of press and publications, said at a news conference yesterday.

Investigations by the local government revealed that dozens of journalists, some genuine and some not, went to the mine not to report on the accident, but to receive hush money.

Dai Xiaojun, a journalist with West Times, who exposed the scandal on Sept 27 by posting a story with photos on his blog, told China Daily yesterday some journalists receive thousands of yuan for covering up events, and sometimes the amount depends on the prestige of the newspaper or TV station.

Dai was also quoted by China Youth Daily on Monday as saying by exposing the scandal, he just wanted do to the right thing.

According to the law, a mine has to pay 200,000 yuan to the family for every person who dies in an accident, and 1 million yuan to the country as punishment. It costs a lot less to pay bribes, Dai said.

Li said although there is no exact figure on the number of journalists that went to the mine to report on the accident, a registration book showed 28 people from 23 media organizations visited the mine on Sept 24 and 25, but only two had press cards.

The Shanxi bureau of press and publication set up two hotlines 0351-4956066 and 0351-4956026 yesterday to report people posing as journalists.

The general administration sent a team to Shanxi province on Monday to investigate the scandal.

"We will pay close attention to these sort of scandals. Once we uncover one, the guilty will be severely punished," Zhu Weifeng, vice-director of the administration, who is also in charge of the investigation, told Xinhua yesterday.

(China Daily October 30, 2008)