21世纪网记者涉嫌新闻敲诈

The website of the prestigous 21st Century Business Herald and two public relations firms are being accused of extorting money from companies in return for favorable coverage.

A total of 8 people have been detained in connection with the probe.  

The eight suspects are accused of extorting money from dozens of companies since last November.

The victims include numerous listed companies and well-known businesses from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong.

All of them were said to be planning to go public, restructuring or in the midst of making a business deal when they were approached by the group.

The news website's editor-in-chief Zhou Bin, who is now in custody, admits they specifically targeted certain companies under the guise of reporting the news.

"Companies which are going public do not want to see negative media reports in view of their own interests, as the procedure of examination and approval would be suspended if there are some negative news reports, and the whole progress of going public would be affected."

After the companies handed over large payments, 21cbh.com would help rebut or conceal negative news reports about them.

The website would also release positive stories about the companies, often times exaggerating the content.

If companies rebuffed the website, it would then publish malicious attacks against them or demand money to ensure the negative stories didn't go public.

Zhou Bin calls this the "paid silence."

"For example, if we wrote some news reports about a listed company, and the company was very anxious to withdraw them. Then, it would find a PR firm to negotiate with us. The prices for erasing these reports were different, it could be half a million yuan, it could be one million."

Police have not specified the amounts the suspects allegedly demanded for these services.

But one of the suspects, the CEO of the business news website, Liu Dong, admits they made a lot of money.

"If there are 200 enterprises going public every year, then 150 of them would cooperate with us in accordance with our targeted ratio of 75 percent. If each of these companies paid 300,000 yuan, then it would be 45 million."

The case itself is still under investigation.

Under regulations set by China's media watchdog, the media credentials of organizations caught acting illegally will be revoked.

21cbh.com is run by Guangdong-based 21st Century Media, which claims to be China's largest professional financial and business media company.

For CRI, I'm Cao Yuwei.