The Washington Post said the practice in part grew out of the censorship imposed on the country's news media by the ruling Communist Party, which disallows any news reporting that could be seen as damaging to the party or its goals. The practice led reporters to believe covering up news stories in exchange for money was no different from the censorship imposed by the government, the Post said.

"It's very, very frequent," said Ma Yunlong, the former editor of a newspaper that uncovered an extortion case in 2005 that consisted of 480 reporters and non-reporters posing as journalists demanding "shut-up fees" to keep a mine flood out of the news.

Ma said he was forced to retire when an official from the central government propaganda department in Beijing ruled the story was "inappropriate" and "false." He said the death toll from the mine flood was never reported in the country.

"This kind of thing has an important impact on the success of local officials," Ma said, "so they always want to cover it up."