Reporter who wrote fake news to face 22 months in jail

The screen shot from CCTV shows Chen Yongzhou (front, left) in the People's Court of Yuelu district, Changsha, Hunan province on October 17, 2014. [Photo: CCTV]

Chen Yongzhou, New Express Daily reporter, was slapped with a jail-term of one year and 10 months and a fine of 20,000 yuan after writing a series of fabricated news articles.

Chen was arrested in 2013, by four policemen in Changsha,a city in South-China's Hunan province, for writing a series of articles about Hunan province-based engineering company Zoomlion's financial troubles. The article's alleged that the company possibly stealing state assets and making fake financial reports.

The Changsha city police said they have enough evidence to prove that Chen fabricated facts to hurt the Changsha-based engineering company in a series of 18 articles published over the past year, thus damaging Zoomlion's reputation.