BEIJING—A former chairman of the company that publishes one of China’s most prominent business newspapers was sentenced to prison Thursday for coercing companies into paying to avoid negative coverage.
The announcement in September 2014 that executives of 21st Century Media Co. were accused of running a multimillion-dollar extortion racket highlighted accusations of rampant misconduct in China’s news industry.
The former chairman, Shen Hao, was convicted of extortion, “forced transactions” and embezzlement, the Shanghai Pudong New Area People’s Court said in a statement. He was sentenced to four years in prison and fined 60,000 yuan ($9,500).
21st Century Media was fined 9.5 million yuan ($1.5 million).
Its former chief financial officer, Le Bing, was convicted of embezzlement and given a suspended two-year sentence.
Companies were coerced into paying more than 200 million yuan ($32 million) for advertising and were threatened with negative news coverage if they refused, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. It said Shen received 7 million yuan ($1.1 million) of that and other executives shared 13 million yuan ($2.1 million).
