The authorities are turning up the heat on fake and unaccredited newspapers and journalists, officials said yesterday.

The crackdown will last until the end of March, the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) said yesterday.

The announcement follows efforts started last year by the administration's anti-pornography and anti-piracy offices to tighten inspections and improve supervisory mechanisms to stop bogus media.

Unaccredited publications fronting as approved newspapers - containing pornography, fabricated reports and even State secrets - have been making the rounds and damaging the social fabric, officials said.

Since August, the GAPP has identified and exposed hundreds of fake newspapers.

Bogus journalists and the organizations they work for have acted against the law and public interest, misled their interviewees for personal gain and "must be rooted out and punished", GAPP Minister Liu Binjie said in a press release.

"Only those who pass tests and receive national press identity cards can take on media occupations," Liu said.

Statistics have shown that authorities have to date confiscated 149 million copies of illegal publications, including 3.7 million pornographic ones, 3.1 million illegal newspapers and periodicals, and 3.3 million smuggled CDs.

In a recent case, a man and woman were jailed for 15 years and 10 years respectively, in Shanghai for the wholesale distribution of pornographic material. The Shanghai No 2 Intermediate People's Court said in its verdict that between January 2006 and April last year, the two bought pornographic books in Henan and Guangdong provinces.

Police raided the duo's storehouse in April and found 13,334 pornographic books and 17,216 pirated publications.

Police also busted 15 workshops, 28 suspects and confiscated 100,000 illegal audio and print materials.

In Changsha, capital of Hunan, police broke a pirating ring involving books worth 20 million yuan.

(China Daily January 15, 2008)