Police detain two newspaper bosses

Two top executives from the 21st Century Business Herald, a respected financial newspaper, were taken away by police on Thursday afternoon, the company confirmed with the Global Times.

Shen Hao, the editor-in-chief, and Chen Dongyang, the general manager, were removed from their posts immediately, according to the Sina Weibo account of Caijing, a business magazine.

The exact reason behind the detention of the two executives remains unknown. However, newspaper operations were unaffected as of Thursday.

"The incident has not affected the operation of the company. Everyone is still preparing for tomorrow's newspaper just like normal," a staff member from the newspaper, who asked for anonymity, told the Global Times.

Shen was born in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province in 1971 and graduated from Peking University in 1992.

Before joining the 21st Century Business Herald, he had worked for Southern Weekly for more than six years. In 2000, Shen joined the 21st Century Business Herald as its editor-in-chief.

The 21st Century Business Herald is a Guangdong-based financial newspaper under the Nanfang Media Group.

Early this month the newspaper was found to have been involved in extortion scandals.

On September 3, eight employees, including the head of the website 21cbh.com, the flagship financial news portal affiliated with the newspaper, were detained by police in Shanghai for allegedly blackmailing companies with threats of negative reports. The outlet's license was revoked and all staff dismissed.

According to police, editor-in-chief Liu Dong, deputy editor-in-chief Zhou Bin and several staff from 21cbh.com had been extorting money from companies since November 2013.

Investigations also showed that the suspects colluded with at least two public relation agencies in extortion activities.

The scandal has drawn huge attention to the role of media in China.

Also in September, a media ethics commission was established in Beijing to target media malpractice. Some 15 provincial regions in China have established media ethics commissions.