Global news organisation, Bloomberg, suspended a journalist, Michael Forsthye, for having allegedly leaked a controversial investigative story about connections between Chinese billionaires and powerful government officials. This was consequently done after it was known that he leaked the news story to other outlets. Bloomberg editors were attempting to kill the story, which was written after a year-long investigation, following fears that it would put the company's profitable monitor business at risk of being kicked out by Chinese authorities.

On November 8, the New York Times (NYT) quoted anonymous Bloomberg journalist, saying the stories were killed as Bloomberg feared that Chinese officials would kick their news operations out of the country or place heavy restrictions on its operations.

'If we run the story, we'll be kicked out of China,'" Bloomberg's Editor-in-Chief Matthew Winkler is reported to have said, according to one Bloomberg employee, quoted by the NYT.

Speaking to NYT, Bloomberg editors, have however, denied that the stories have been killed.

"What you have is untrue," Winkler told the Times. "The stories are active and not spiked."

However, the NYT reports that employees suspect this action against the stories are due to the upcoming visit of Bloomberg's Chief Executive Daniel L. Doctoroff to China.

Fears at Bloomberg are not unfounded, as Atlantic Wire points out. Other international publications in China have faced complications after they published stories that had been critical of the Chinese government. In Oct 2012, two Internet language editions of The New York Times were banned in China after it published investigative articles on the wealth of outgoing Prime Minister Wen Jiabao's family. Earlier, in Nov 2013, Chinese officials refused to grant a resident visa for Reuters correspondent Paul Mooney, who had been a reporter in Asia for decades and lived in Beijing for 18 years. China refused him a visa, as he was scheduled to start a new job with Reuters, apparently punishing him for his past coverage of human rights abuses in the country.