Plagiarism is one of the favorite working methods of many journalists at the state-owned China Daily and at Xinhua's English website. But recently the copying methods of these journalists are becoming increasingly sophisticated.

Take for example, a recent Intertfax story about a website that sets up surrogate mothers with women who can't have children, titled Chinese surrogate mother website grows amid risks and controversies. Some journalist at the China Daily copied the article, chopped it up a bit, removed that scary word "controversies" and republished it on the China Daily's website as Surrogate mother site grows in popularity.

Another example from Interfax: a story called 52% of Chinese office workers write Internet blogs, complaining and privacy top blog themes.

The China Daily picked it up, added a sexy photo from Chinese girl blogger Mu Mu, attributed it to Interfax, removed the scary word "complaining" from the headline and published it as 52% of office workers write blogs, privacy top theme.

After this, Xinhua picked it up directly from the China Daily, republishing with the cleaned up headline here, crediting the story only to the China Daily, making it seem that it was just one state-owned media company borrowing from another.

Content laundry: could it be the next growth business on the Chinese Internet?

- Thanks to DC Running Machine for the links.