Given the limited freedom of local media on criticizing local governments, provincial leaders linked to strong national leaders, such as Politburo Standing Committee members, encouraged local media to cover negative political incidents such as corruption investigation in other provinces.
More importantly, when reporting on others, provincial leaders are more likely to target provinces connected to weaker national political leaders. The bigger the power gap between the national leaders, the more frequent the negative reporting is.
"This suggests that factional competition encourages strong factions to attack weaker factions more frequently than the reverse," Ji Yeon (Jean) Hong, associate professor of political science at the University of Michigan, said. "This often leads to power consolidation, strengthening strong factions and weakening weaker factions."
Addition for the link to the study: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2049847022000358/type/journal_article