A Beijing-based media outlet has been fined by press authorities for allowing a reporter who does not hold a press card to conduct interviews, casting a spotlight on ongoing issues with China’s journalist registration system, which some say can be exploited to suppress unfavorable coverage.

China Times, a financial media outlet known for investigative reporting, published two articles in December 2017 and January 2018 exposing alleged corruption: Staff writer Lü Fangrui reported that Guangdong Rongye Financial Guarantee Co. Ltd., a private company, had made millions from helping a Hong Kong businessman borrow a colossal 130 million yuan ($21 million) from Chaoyang Rural Credit Cooperative, a public credit union in southern China’s Guangdong province. The article suggested that Rongye and the co-op colluded in malpractice, violating multiple financial regulations.

In response, Su Yongsheng, a lawyer representing a former Rongye shareholder named in Lü’s story, filed nearly a hundred complaints against the newspaper to media regulators. He called Lü a “fake reporter” for not having a state-issued press card — an official, albeit frequently unmet, requirement for reporting in China.

Su also filed a defamation lawsuit with the Shantou Jinping District People’s Court, and both articles have now been deleted from the China Times website in accordance with a preliminary injunction from the court.

On Friday, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film, and Television (SAPPRFT) posted that China Times had been fined 10,000 yuan for allowing Lü to carry out interviews without a license.

Because SAPPRFT has an online query system, it is easy for the public to check whether the administration has issued a reporter a press card. In a list provided by the lawyer, Su, and verified by Sixth Tone, 35 writers at China Times — almost half of all staff who have ever published an article on the paper’s website since 2017 — do not currently hold press cards.

Yet China Times is hardly alone in employing reporters who lack official credentials. In 2006 —  according to China News, a government media outlet published under the auspices of the State Council Information Office — there were 800,000 working reporters in the country, of whom only 180,000 held licenses. The situation has not improved with the proliferation of new media.

Lü told Sixth Tone that he joined China Times about a year ago. He refused to comment on why he didn’t have a press card, but his colleague, Jin Wei, told Sixth Tone that some new hires like Lü did not have the card because they had not applied in time. Reporters have to apply through their news agency to get the license from SAPPRFT, after they have passed a test that local news authorities only hold once or twice a year.

According to the regulation, which was implemented in 2005, employees must work for a news agency for at least one year before they are eligible to apply for a press card, unless they have a state-funded permanent position. That leaves many working reporters without a license for the first year of their employment in a new organization, media professor Zhan Jiang explained.

China Times has stood by its staff. On Sunday, the news outlet published an announcement defending its reporters and its reputation, stressing that it would take legal measures to protect its rights. A party related to the co-op report had tried in a variety of ways to get the stories deleted, the announcement said, and to “defame the paper, its editors, and its reporters by using words such as ‘fake media’ and ‘fake reporter.’” The publication declined Sixth Tone’s request for comment.

“They sent several intermediaries to demand that we delete the article,” Lü told Sixth Tone on Monday. “We shut them out, so they fabricated affairs to report to the authorities.” According to Lü, the complaints included unfounded accusations that he had been bribed and had not interviewed key characters involved in the case.

Su told Sixth Tone that he is still in the process of gathering evidence, though he plans to ask China Times for damages for defaming his client. For now, however, the only evidence of misconduct by China Times that Su has provided relates to its staff’s credentials.

“Under the current rules, conducting interviews without a press card is indeed illegal,” said Zhan, the professor. “There, at least, he seems to have caught them.”

Editor: Qian Jinghua.

(Header image: Journalists stand in line to receive press cards during a conference in Beijing, March 1, 2015. Da Meng/VCG)