In February 2026, a report titled “Reporter’s Undercover Investigation of Mental Hospitals Exposes Fraud and Corruption” went viral across the entire network.
This investigative report, published by the Beijing News, revealed that two mental hospitals in Hubei Province, for the purpose of profit, illegally admitted normal people, defrauded medical insurance funds, and subjected patients to beatings, abuse, and forced extensions of their hospital stays. The reporter’s report exposed many horrifying facts: in this area, running a mental hospital had become a “specialty” like running a beef noodle shop. Many patients did not have obvious mental abnormalities, and even the hospital’s nursing staff and security guards could go through the admission procedures to become so-called “mental patients.” For the real patients, the hospital staff would often slap them, kick them, or even whip them with water pipes. At the same time, the “patients” who were admitted were prevented from being discharged by all means because the hospital wanted to obtain medical insurance, and even arranged for patients to “fake discharge.”
Currently, the relevant departments in the two places involved have established special working groups or investigation teams, stating that they will conduct a comprehensive investigation and handle the cases in accordance with the law. Besides promoting a turnaround in the incident, it also indirectly confirms that the reporter’s investigation is indeed well-founded and credible. Indeed—if it weren’t for him, using the identity of a nursing staff member to go undercover for a month, quietly collecting evidence and investigating while completing the nursing staff’s complicated work, and leaving behind conclusive proof and documents, I’m afraid no one would really know that such a dark secret was hidden in the mental hospital.
After reading this report, I quickly scrolled up to find the reporter’s name.
It turned out to be him!
Han Futao. The reporter who shocked the whole country two years ago with the “illegal loading of soybean oil in tanker trucks”!
At a time when people are lamenting that “there are no good reporters,” he is still on the front lines. Whether he is threatened and tempted, or praised by the whole country, or even slandered as a “foreign force” or “attacking state-owned enterprises”… he still remains true to his original aspiration, as always, rushing to the scene, using a hidden identity to reveal the truth to us.
When the tanker truck had just unloaded the chemical coal tar and, without cleaning, loaded it with edible soybean oil; when underage child laborers were “bought and sold like livestock” in the Changshu garment factory; when Pang Ge Liang’s Meat Crab Pot used overnight dead crabs and expired potatoes to pass off as good quality, the perpetrators did not realize that there was a pair of righteous eyes watching them.
The day before yesterday, we published the story of American female reporter Julie K. Brown. Many people asked in the background if there were similar reporters in China, and some people lamented: Chinese investigative reporters have disappeared. However, Teacher Han Futao, and many other teacher reporters, are still using their actions to tell us: investigative reporting still exists. Those who disregard their lives and report on the darkness also exist.
The story of Han Futao
Han Futao graduated from the Department of Radio and Television Journalism at Anhui University. He has worked at Huai’an TV Station, Phoenix.com headquarters, NetEase, and Li Video, etc. As a well-known investigative reporter in the industry, he is especially good at investigative reports on negative events. Everyone in the industry knows that almost every news item he reports is a shocking “hard fact.”
For example, in this edible oil incident, many people are curious about how Han Futao was able to monitor the details of the truck loading and transporting oil, and they admire his ability to stake out. But in his long career of “undercover” and secret visits, this is not the most prominent.
Liu Simin, a reporter from News Century Net, and the public account “Mogaozi” once conducted an exclusive interview with Han Futao, revealing many fragments of Han Futao’s news work. In it, we saw how Han Futao does news:
In 2012, Han Futao, who had just graduated, investigated the illegal situation of black cars. He was discovered by the local thugs while secretly taking photos of the black cars, and he was able to escape only after dealing with them for 10 hours.
In 2017, he investigated the smuggling of “foreign garbage” clothing to Vietnam. At the border of Vietnam, he was followed by a smuggling gang, who called for reinforcements on the walkie-talkie, and he escaped by hiding in the forest. “Vietnam’s public security is poor,” border inspection soldiers openly demanded bribes, and the police were severely corrupt. He said: “I can’t imagine what would happen if I couldn’t make up a reasonable excuse.”
In 2016, Han Futao learned about the situation of employing child laborers in Changshu. Han Futao went undercover and joined the garment factory, becoming “a group of people he spent time with. Eating and living together, working together, suffering together, and scolding the foreman.” Han Futao found that a black industrial chain had formed here for child laborers. Black intermediaries charged an intermediary fee of 2,000 yuan per person to sell child laborers from Yunnan to Changshu. The Changshu boss required child laborers to work from 6:30 am to 11:30 pm, and also withheld the child laborers’ computers and ID cards, and owed wages. The black intermediaries and child laborers “sought help from the police and also complained to the human resources department,” but to no avail. After the news was released, the People’s Daily reprinted it, and CCTV News followed up. More than a thousand garment processing factories in Changshu were investigated, and the child laborers finally gained their freedom.
In 2021, Han Futao found that many negative reviews of “Pang Ge Liang’s Meat Crab Pot” were surprisingly consistent. He decided to go undercover in Pang Ge Liang’s kitchen to find out. In order to ensure the reliability of the information, he went undercover in Pang Ge Liang’s Chaoyang District Hesheng Hui store and Beijing Caide MALL Grand Canyon store, working while collecting information. He finally found that Pang Ge Liang not only used “overnight crabs” and spoiled potatoes, but also had a serious shortage of meat crab pot. After this was exposed, the founder of Pang Ge Liang apologized with tears.
In 2024, Han Futao participated in the investigation of the chaos in Chinese herbal medicine. As a reporter who did not know much about Chinese herbal medicine before, he spent a month in the name of an online store owner, widely obtaining information and establishing contact with suppliers in the Bozhou medicinal material market. According to the records of the public account “Mogaozi,” Han Futao “basically ran through all the shops selling Angelica in the Bozhou medicinal material market in order to find fake Angelica.” He finally gained the trust of the drug dealers. He published “Investigation of the Chaos in Online Purchases of Chinese Herbal Medicine.” In the end, the deputy mayor of Bozhou personally led the inspection and severely punished the merchants selling fake goods.
In 2025, Han Futao discovered that Fu Xuehai, the former director of the Hongtong County Finance Bureau in Shanxi Province, had three criminal records, including two counts of theft and a count of hooliganism, yet he continued to rise in rank, and even his age was reduced by 8 years. Through visits, he finally restored the “whitewashing” and promotion experience behind Fu Xuehai. After that, all relevant personnel were interviewed and investigated at each node from Fu Xuehai’s joining the party to holding public office and repeated promotions. Some officials have been removed from their posts, and some have been placed under investigation.
Of course, what people know best is the tanker truck incident that shocked the whole country in 2024. After transporting coal-based oil, without washing the tank, directly loading edible oil—this shocking industry rule pushed dangerous carcinogens to everyone’s table. Behind this, Han Futao made the car his home, followed multiple tanker trucks throughout the process, and his footprints covered many provinces and cities, including Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Jiangsu, and Henan, traveling thousands of kilometers, interviewing dozens of drivers and internal personnel of edible oil companies, and finally built a complete chain of evidence. After the news was released, some people questioned his motives. However, the country’s response has confirmed the authenticity of the news: the State Administration for Market Regulation issued the mandatory national standard “Hygienic Requirements for Bulk Transportation of Edible Vegetable Oil,” and the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued opinions to establish a transportation permit system for bulk liquid food. This is one of the biggest social changes driven by news in recent years.
Why does Han Futao have such a strong reporting ability? Perhaps it is exactly the opposite of what many people think. He is not smart, but “stupid.” Han Futao himself once said, “People who are too smart” cannot be investigative reporters. For example, he does not pursue using a flowery writing style or sensational topics to gain traffic, but instead, he honestly uses the most basic methods to “work hard” on the most traditional topics. When sharing his experience at Shantou University, he emphasized: “60% of the time and energy in investigative reporting should be invested in interviews and evidence collection. Without real interviews and conclusive evidence, no matter how good the writing is, it is just a story, not news.” Whether it is the multi-faceted verification of transportation documents, industry standards, and expert opinions in the tanker truck investigation, or the comprehensive record of the admission system, nursing staff testimonies, and on-site pictures during the undercover investigation of the mental hospital, it all demonstrates his ultimate pursuit of “news authenticity.”
In addition to Han Futao, those reporters who are still fighting
Looking back at Han Futao’s news deeds, it also reminds people of the mockery of “journalism” over the years.
Although netizens usually have a negative comment on journalism, although “journalism” has become a stigmatized term, although the Beijing News has been subjected to all kinds of mockery and attacks. However, after the release of the tanker truck incident and the report on the mental hospital fraud. People spontaneously gave Han Futao and the Beijing News a thumbs up.
“Don’t advise you to carve on stubborn stone, the words of people on the road are like a monument.” It turns out that people do not hate news, but the aversion to darkness, the sadness that facts are ignored and falsehoods and embellishments are everywhere.
People do not misunderstand reporters either, but the reporters who profit from news and hype are often known to all, while the names of the reporters who truly strive to discover the truth are often hidden behind their works and facts.
So besides Han Futao, there are many people who should be remembered by us.
I want to write down some of their names (in order not to hinder their work, I still decided not to post photos):
Liu Xiangnan, reporter and director of the Social Department of China News Weekly
The most famous thing about Teacher Liu Xiangnan is that in 2022, he wrote “Investigation of the Incident of Concealment of Miner Deaths in Daixian County, Shanxi.” In this report, Liu Xiangnan traveled to Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Chongqing, visiting a total of 20 villages, and investigated and verified the reported concealment of the incident. The investigation found that the Jincheng Iron Mine concealed multiple mine accidents from 2007 to 2022. There were 17 people whose identities were verified through on-site visits (while the whistleblower gave a number of more than 30). Among them, at least three miners died and were concealed in the two months before the “9·1” collapse accident. The concealment time spanned fifteen years (from 2007 to 2022). The local relationships were intertwined, and the informants were also threatened many times. But Teacher Liu Xiangnan still completed this seemingly impossible investigation task in less than two months. In the end, the relevant person in charge was held accountable.
In 2025, Liu Xiangnan took action again and wrote “Investigation of the Chaos of Coal Gangue Dumping in Luliang, Shanxi,” which reported that some coal gangue yards in Luliang City, Shanxi Province, had relatively serious violations of dumping. The report said that these coal gangue yards are mostly located in deep gully areas, and some are even located in the river beaches of the Yellow River tributaries; such illegal disposal behavior has posed a real threat to the ecological environment safety of the Yellow River Basin.
Li Dong, reporter of New Yellow River
Li Dong, a senior investigative reporter, has long focused on the fields of politics and law, and people’s livelihood. He once worked as a breaking news reporter, political news editor, and in-depth investigative reporter at Legal Evening News. Li Dong wrote “An ID Card Leads to ‘True and False’ Two Robbers.” In Sunji Town, Lixin County, Anhui Province, Li Siqiang, a “fool” with intellectual disabilities, was sentenced to robbery and imprisoned because he held an ID card of “Liu Xiwen,” a fugitive from a robbery case in Shantou. The prison guards found that the “fool’s” real name was Li Siqiang. But the infuriating twist is that after the court investigation, it ruled that he used the identity of “Liu Xiwen” to participate in the Shantou robbery case, and then corrected “Liu Xiwen” in the judgment to “Li Siqiang,” and continued to let Li Siqiang serve his sentence in prison. Li Dong, through a large number of visits, including finding two accomplices of Liu Xiwen in the 2003 Shantou robbery case, brought this unjust case to the surface again. On April 19, 2024, the Xiangqiao District Court of Chaozhou City, Guangdong Province, publicly announced the retrial of the Li Siqiang robbery case. The court held that the original court’s determination that Li Siqiang committed the crime of robbery was unclear in facts and insufficient in evidence, and finally cleared Li Siqiang of his grievances.
In 2024, Li Dong also wrote “A Case of Environmental Pollution That Was Withdrawn, Leading to the Clues of Police Bribery,” which tells the rare inside story of a “environmental pollution” case in Quyang, Hebei—a public security officer used environmental criminal offenses to intimidate and extort money. After the work was published, the Quyang County Party Committee established an investigation team to conduct a detailed investigation of all aspects of the case. Several police officers who demanded bribes were arrested. Prosecutors and judges were disciplined. The parties began to claim state compensation.
Li Weiao, reporter of Economic Observer
Li Weiao has been in the news industry since 2003 and has worked for media such as Caijing Magazine, Southern Weekend, and Tencent.com. He joined the Economic Observer in 2018 and served as the chief reporter. He won the Southern Weekend Annual Media Attention (2011), the Asian Publishing Association’s Excellence in Journalism Award (2016), the Global Light Award Final 12 (2017), and was nominated for the “Reporter’s Home” Journalism Award twice and won once. He reported on the series of reports on the “Ma Shushan Case” of retired cadres in Hebei, which led to the central inspection team entering Tangshan—this was the first special inspection of a prefecture-level city that is not a provincial capital by the central inspection team. The series of reports on the “China Chess First Person” Wang Tianyi case brought the myth of Wang Tianyi, the myth of Chinese reporters, down from the altar, and was finally dealt with seriously by law. But what is most well-known is the 2025 “In-depth Disclosure: The Beginning and End of the CEO of Three-Body Company Poisoning the Chairman of Youzu, Lin Qi,” which took five years to complete, and meticulously restored the cause and effect of the poisoning of Lin Qi, the boss of Youzu Company, by his subordinate Xu Yao, which can be called China’s “In Cold Blood.”
“A strong wind knows the strong grass, and the turbulent times recognize the heroes.” The reporters of ten years ago and fifteen years ago left us with the “golden age,” the “iron shoulders bearing the way,” and the “imagination of fame.” But today, when investigative reporting has generally entered a low tide, when the myth of the “uncrowned king” has disappeared, and respect has been overwhelmed by mockery, the investigative reporters who are still insisting on digging for the truth may also deserve our respect, or, more worthy of our affirmation.
This era is very difficult, and “studying journalism and becoming a reporter” has long become an old legend, and “journalism” itself has been vilified. Those who are willing to be investigative reporters are even rarer.
But I always believe that true news, especially investigative news, it is not dead, it will not die, because it is rooted in people’s demand for the truth, and comes from people’s yearning for justice.
What we can do, besides dedicating ourselves to the news, can also be to give more support to truly good reporters: for example, let us remember their names, let us actively forward and collect these good reports, share them with others, and even pay to support some of the paid sections of high-quality media to avoid “bad money driving out good money.”
I also hope that students can leave the reports and authors that impressed you the most in the comment area and share them with us.
Don’t ask when the sky will be bright, because every little effort of everyone is a little light for the truth.
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