Corruption in media needs to be stamped out with decisive steps

Several editors at Shanghai-based business news website 21cbh.com were detained last week for allegedly blackmailing enterprises. According to the police, the case involved a huge amount of money.

Xinhua News Agency's branch in Shanghai "automatically" ended a 3.5 million yuan ($590,000) contract with Bank of Communications last week after the central authority's disciplinary inspection team found the contract actually was a way for the bank to buy good news or ignorance from the State-run media.

The two cases came after President Xi Jinping vowed to reform the media last month and are believed to be a starting point for the authorities to deal with corruption in the media.

Analysts said the two cases are a tiny fraction of the media malpractice that has operated as an open secret in the industry or even a lucrative business model.

Three kinds of media corruption prevail in China.

First, as the 21cbh.com case indicates, some unscrupulous editors and reporters seek illicit profits from their interviewees, enterprises and governments. In exchange, they agree to report positive news about the interviewees, or become selectively blind to their negative stories.

Many enterprises' public relations budgets are spent to muffle the media in cases of scandal or production accidents, or employ the media to trumpet their products and services. Envelopes containing so-called traffic fees are common at many press conferences organized by companies and local governments.

In the process, news reporting becomes an exchange of money and publicity.

The media lose their public credibility and independence. Paid reporting is actually a manipulation of public opinion and an abuse of public tools. Money talks at the expense of the public interest and media ethics.

Second, some star reporters develop close personal connections with senior officials and big bosses. They are middle men for underhanded dealings between the officials and businesspeople. Or, some officials of powerful media monopolies take advantage of their power through extortion.

Last month, several notable anchors, producers and an advertising department head from China Central Television were investigated for an alleged connection to senior officials and abuse of power.

Rui Chenggang, star anchor of business news for CCTV, was found to be running a public relations company with his family, and most of the company's clients were his interviewees.

Third, as Xinhua's Shanghai case shows, the media's branches across the country are usually important moneymakers for their headquarters in Beijing, Shanghai or provincial capitals.

Although the media administration strictly bans this practice and stipulates that local branches can only do reporting work, the branches may find ways to circumvent the auditing of the authority. Making money has been an important task for them for a long time.

Were it not for the special inspection team, Xinhua's case would not have been exposed, because local governments try to maintain good relations with the central media's branches, which are regarded as messengers directly connecting senior State leaders.

There are reasons behind this phenomenon.

On one hand, the media administration still relies on government rules and policies to regulate the fast-changing media industry. The lack of a rule of law makes the rumormongers and blackmailers fearless. Thus, once they have mastered the media outlets, they acquire a channel to translate the media's influence into personal gain.

Bad money drives out good money. Good media suffer from the lack of rules, but bad ones boom.

On the other hand, when some companies and government departments make mistakes in terms of the public interest, the irresponsible watchdogs do not address the errors in time. Or, they do not find any mistakes at all.

It is usually the media that find the mistakes first and develop them into a scandal or a hot topic. The fastest way to kill a report and sway public opinion during a scandal is to pay the media in the form of an advertising fee. Many enterprises and governments include publicity fees in their budgets to quench any fires in the media.

The low wages paid to reporters and editors are another important cause of media corruption. The average monthly salary of a journalist working three years in Beijing and Shanghai is about $1,000 to $1,500, an amount far from enough to allow them a decent standard of living. And even if they work another 10 years as a journalist, their income will not increase as much as it would in other careers.

Some journalism professors term the young reporters and editors who quit their media jobs after several years "journalist migrant workers".

The media have become a training ground for other professions.

The police and central authority's inspection teams are not enough to address the media's corruption.

To some extent, the issue is an intersection of many problems within Chinese society, government and the market.

China should have a press law that could be the foundation for carrying out the rule of law in media.

As Chinese society becomes more pluralistic, the media should also play a role as an effective public sphere for reflecting the fast-changing society and provide channels for different interest groups to communicate their opinions.

Without a media ruled by law, it is hard to organize such a responsible public sphere for constructive discussion and communication.

A rule-of-law media landscape not only guarantees the people's right to say and to know, but also creates a fair environment for competition among media.