They should have stood at the front of the line to expose the coverup of coalmine accidents, but they turned out to be among the culprits who have contributed to the conspiracy.

They are the reporters who have been bribed into silence. They received bribes instead of reporting the coalmine accidents. They are the bad apples and more than a dozen have already been sentenced to various years of imprisonment, but some are still at large 18 months after the fatal accident in a coalmine in North China's Hebei province.

The fact the local Weixian county government has spent more than 2.6 million yuan ($382,000) in keeping a number of reporters quiet about the accident in June constitutes an affront to the professionalism of journalism and to the conscience of these reporters.

Fortunately, it is also journalists whose investigation unveiled the dirty business between these bad apples and local government officials. What has taken us aback is the remark from a local official that a number of coalmine accidents have been successfully covered up because of an invested group, whose interests were tied to any exposure of the accidents.

Coalmine owners as well as some local government leaders are the last who want an accident to be disclosed to the higher authorities. They are either afraid of being severely punished, or afraid of losing their positions and opportunities at promotions. And possibly some of them have interests in these mines. Coalmine owners fear that their mines will be closed if the accident is exposed to the higher authorities through the media.

Yet, their efforts alone can hardly keep the information of an accident from being leaked. They need journalists to keep their mouths shut as well by offering bribes. When journalists have sacrificed their professional ethics for bribes and become accomplices, it becomes easier to cover up an accident, however serious and bloody it is.

What is even worse is the fact that fatal industrial accidents, those in coalmines in particular, have turned out to be an opportunity for some reporters to blackmail local government or those culprits of accidents for financial gains.

They have their tipsters, who would let them know about an accident immediately after it takes place, and then they rush to the very site and ask for money to keep quiet.

Rather than serving as a watchdog, they become parasites on industrial accidents to sponge up dirty money. They have neither the sense of social responsibility, nor shame.

They have ruined the reputation of journalists. Because of them, journalists are notoriously labeled as one of the most unwelcome people in some places. They guard against journalists as they would against burglars or thieves.

Thorough investigations are needed to find out those who have gotten away with such criminal dealings. And those who are found to have received bribes should be kicked out of the profession for life and receive due penalties. And news organizations must tighten control over correspondents they have dispatched to cover local news.

Never let the bad apples spoil the bunch.