Microblogs, China's equivalent of Twitter, have been the source of many sensational, but false, news stories published by newspapers and news websites over the past year, a magazine has found.

An investigation by Chinese Journalist, a government-funded publication, into the source of 10 false news reports this year concluded that reporters and editors from serious Chinese news media were increasingly failing in their duties as professional journalists to check the accuracy of stories before rushing into print or putting the tales on their websites.

The most notorious tall tale concerned a young woman said to have become pregnant after being raped at the Shanghai World Expo. The story was widely reported on several news websites, including www.cnhubei.com, a news website based in Hubei Province, and www.newssc.org, a gateway news website of Sichuan Province, the magazine said.

The tale, with headlines declaring: "Squeezed into pregnancy," was widely read and also spread like wildfire on many social-networking platforms.

The girl's mother was quoted as saying her daughter, He Ting, had been raped while trapped in a huge crowd trying to get a ticket to watch a performance by a South Korean boy band on May 30. The girl said serious overcrowding prevented her from turning around to catch sight of her attacker before he disappeared.

The rape was over in seconds, the stories said, leaving the girl no time to scream for help. The stories also mentioned a crime report filed at a police station in the Pudong New Area on June 11.

The dramatic story was even attributed to Xinmin Evening News, a reputable and renowned Shanghai newspaper, complete with the bylines of two reporters. However, police later said there had been no claim of rape as described in the story and no report of the story by the newspaper. It also said the names of the two reporters had been made up.

Further investigation showed the story had been posted anonymously on a social networking website.

A clue that the story might not be as it appeared was in the city mentioned - Xiahai, not Shanghai.

However, website editors are thought to have ignored that slip and just replaced "Xiahai" with "Shanghai" when publishing the story, China Journalist found.

Another false story concerned the "death" of China's best-selling kung fu novelist Louis Cha, which circulated widely early this month.

Without verifying its accuracy, a new media editor reposted the story using the official online account of China Newsweek after spotting it on a Microblog. Many readers believed the respected publication was confirming that a rumor the writer had died was true. Two officials at the magazine resigned while the editor who published the story was fired.

Also among the magazine's top 10 major news lies of the year was a story from the China News Agency about the number of youngsters dying each year from respiratory diseases caused by indoor pollution.

On May 16, it reported that the national disease control center told a news conference that about 2.2 million youngsters died from respiratory diseases each year because of indoor pollution.

But the Ministry of Health said it had never held any news conference to release such information.

The news agency management later said the news came from material the reporter received at a seminar held by a company which was promoting a high-tech product to reduce air pollutants from household decorations and furniture.