Rent-seeking should have nothing to do with journalism. Those who accept bribes to write stories are bad apples that should be driven out of the profession.

When New Express reporter Chen Yongzhou was detained by police from Changsha, Hunan province, last week, our sympathy went out to him on impulse. And we strongly believed that the police had done the wrong thing when the Guangzhou-based paper called for his release.

But his confession that he was paid to write stories containing unverified facts that damaged the reputation of an enterprise caught journalists and his paper unawares. His paper, which had vehemently defended his reporting, has now apologized.