Four journalist and a self-claimed reporter have been given jail terms ranging from nine months to one year for taking bribery from a coal mine owner in northern China's Shanxi Province to cover up a fatal accident.

The four media workers, Zhang Xiangdong, Xiang Zhihao, Zhang Changnian and Zhao Xiuqing, were each sentenced to nine months in prison on conviction of bribery, the General Administration of Press and Publications said Friday. They are banned from employment in journalism for life.

Liu Xiaobing, a man who assumed the identity of a reporter from the Legal Daily, got one year in jail over "blackmailing".

They were found by local courts in Shanxi Province to take hush money from a coal mine owner to cover up the death of 41-year-old miner Ji Xinhong, who was suffocated to death on Sept. 20, 2008.

The colliery did not report the death to the government but chose to pay bribery to journalists or those who claimed to be journalists within one month of the accident in exchange for confidentiality.