media - Four journalists jailed... for real crimes

When journalists get into jail the world rightfully pays attention to those cases: you do not want poor people like me to get incarcerated just for doing their job. But what to think of these four cases, reported in the Shanghai Daily. Journalists got into jail for job-related crimes:

Meng Huaihu, head of the Zhejiang Province office of the China Business Times, reportedly signed a contract with the newspaper to generate 400,000 yuan worth of advertising revenue.
Meng allegedly extorted 350,000 yuan from the Zhejiang Petroleum Co, offering to withhold negative publicity after a car owner complained about problems with the company's fuel.

To be honest with you, I do not know any independent sources to confirm the truth behind those stories, but they do not sound that unlikely. I hope other sources can supply more background.

Update I: And here a reporter says he is being prosecuted for extortion because he was going after local officials for corruption. Very hard to decide from a distance who is right.
Update II: ESWN also dives into the news, admits the information is too scarce to really know what is going on, but comes with an interesting analysis. All cases are local news offices of national papers and he translates a piece elaborating on how those work, as a franchise:

So you would like to become a local news bureau chief? You make an advanced payment of 50,000 RMB as a deposit and then you bring in than 300,000 RMB in advertising sales per year. The job will be yours. They don't care about your academic experience, or any past problems with law or discipline, or any experience in journalistic work. And they don't care what you do as long as you bring the money in.
The newspaper will bear no responsibility with respect to office expenses, wages, travel expenses, welfare benefits or anything else. You are on your own. That means you are free to approach government departments or private companies. You can take payment for promising to write promotion puff pieces. You can also take payment for promising not to write acerbic negative criticisms for real or imaginary problems. And you don't even have to keep those promises. Nobody cares what you do until you get caught.