My understanding is that light can not escape from within a black hole (within the event horizon).  I've also heard that information cannot propagate faster than the speed of light.  It would seem to me that the gravitational attraction caused by a black hole carries information about the amount of mass within the black hole.  So, how does this information escape?  Looking at it from a particle point of view: do the gravitons (should they exist) travel faster than the photons?
There are some good answers here already but I hope this is a nice short summary:

Electromagnetic radiation cannot escape a black hole, because it travels at the speed of light. Similarly, gravitational radiation cannot escape a black hole either, because it too travels at the speed of light. If gravitational radiation could escape, you could theoretically use it to send a signal from the inside of the black hole to the outside, which is forbidden.

A black hole, however, can have an electric charge, which means there is an electric field around it. This is not a paradox because a static electric field is different from electromagnetic radiation. Similarly, a black hole has a mass, so it has a gravitational field around it. This is not a paradox either because a gravitational field is different from gravitational radiation.

You say the gravitational field carries information about the amount of mass (actually energy) inside, but that does not give a way for someone inside to send a signal to the outside, because to do so they would have to create or destroy energy, which is impossible. Thus there is no paradox.
