bc magazine

Censorship, Intimidation and Harassment of SCMP Reader

scmp-powering-through---2-january-2016

It’s ironic that while on it’s front pages the SCMP vociferously advocates for press freedom and the release of Bo Lee and his fellow disappeared. The reality within it’s own pages is that of censorship, intimidation and harassment of any reader who dare criticise or question an SCMP employee. The exact type of actions that the SCMP would have its readers believe it looks to expose in others. The hypocrisy is sad.

On the 1 January the SCMP’s Kevin Kung spent 16 hours, working until 1am, on a story about the New Year’s Day Youth Rugby Tournament at HK Football Club. By his own admission he didn’t stay until the end of the tournament. A sterling effort you might think, except that the published article, a massive 250 or so words, quite simply ignores half the participants. Focusing solely on the boys rugby, reading his original story you’d never know that half the rugby played that day was by girls.

Linda Olson the administrator and driving force behind the Women’s Rugby Hong Kong Facebook group enquired politely of Mr Kung about the gender bias in his article.

“I am wondering why you only reported on boys’ rugby in the article below?
The headline makes it sound as if only boys took part.
The article itself makes no mention of the girls who played.
The video includes only brief coverage of girls rugby (the U12s team and captain).
This is unacceptable.
Nearly a quarter of rugby players in Hong Kong are girls/women and it is the most rapidly expanding demographic here.
Please ensure that your coverage is more inclusive in future..”

The article’s author Mr Kung replied and made some edits to ‘improve’ the online version of the article:
1. “Girls” was added to the sub-headline making it gender neutral.
2. A photo with caption of Gracie Hood (GH) was added.
3. An extra paragraph added to the end of the article mentioned the U19s girls’ game (but did not name the Captain as they had with the boys game) and GH being named Best and Fairest of the match.
Mrs Olson notified the WRHK Facebook group members of the changes and thanked Mr Kung for making them, at the same time providing a quantitative analysis of the gender imbalance of the SCMP coverage.

Mr Kung however had also cc’d in SCMP Sports Editor Noel Prentice who then fired off an intimidatory and threatening email to Mrs Olson which he cc’d to senior figures at the HK Rugby Union AND Mrs Olson’s employer!!!

Mr Prentice’s email is quite astounding in it’s arrogance, tone and less than full disclosure of facts.

“I take exception to you accusing my reporter and SCMP of sexist coverage when Kevin has gone out of his way to cover rugby and the New Year’s Day tournament. He spent 16 hours compiling the online and print coverage so please have some respect.

SCMP is a great supporter of rugby and we give what many consider a niche sport a disproportionate amount of coverage. (bc’s note: why, because the HK Rugby Union pay the SCMP a lot of money to write about local and international rugby). And we have also gone out of our way to cover the emergence of women/girls in the game and the opportunity they have been afforded.

We do not have the resources to give blanket coverage to any sport and all sports and events are judged on their news value.

We also strive to be fair and balanced and I would expect you to also adhere to these principles when delivering any gender bias lectures to the students of Li Po Chun United World College of Hong Kong.” SCMP’s Noel Prentice

If it takes Mr Kung 16 hours to write a 250 or so word article it does explain a lot about why the SCMP print edition is so thin and lacking in content compared to years past. Joking aside Noel Prentice’s email is factually mis-representative of Mrs Olson’s enquiry and comment; neglects to mention that the HKRU pays the SCMP lots of money to ‘support’ the writing and publishing of stories about rugby; and extremely patronising of the fairer sex “the emergence of women/girls in the game and the opportunity they have been afforded” and by assuming that boys rugby coverage is of value, while coverage of girls youth rugby has no news value.

If the original article was to quote Mr Prentice “Fair and balanced” then Mrs Olson wouldn’t have needed to contact Mr Kung and could have used the story to show how the media was covering girls and women’s rugby in the same detail as men’s rugby. That it didn’t make any mention of 50% of the tournaments participants makes it unbalanced not fully accurate and a perfect example of gender imbalance in the media – the subject of Mrs Olson’s frustration and her class.

Why Mr Prentice also cc’d Mrs Olson employer, in what appears to be a blatant intimidation attempt to damage her professional standing and work relationship with her employer – while at the same time looking to censor the use of SCMP content in an education setting – is something the SCMP failed to answer when bc emailed them asking for a comment.

Read the full email conversation here – email addresses have been removed to protect people’s privacy.
Read about women’s rugby in bc magazine and here on the Women’s Rugby Hong Kong facebook group.

Attacked Ming Pao Journalist Kevin Lau speaking at the Human Rights Press Awards

Journalist Kevin Lau spoke at the Human Rights Press Awards annual luncheon on 9 May, 2015 about being attacked in February 2014. The attack, by chopper wielding assailants who hacked at his legs, took place not long after Lau was sacked as the Editor of Ming Pao, and left him bleeding on the pavement.

Here is his address on why “Now is the worst time – and best time – to be a journalist in Hong Kong.”

Dear Guests and Friends,

In the past two years, people have frequently asked whether press freedom in Hong Kong was under threat. Now I think the answer is crystal clear. It is. In this sense, now is the worst time to be a journalist in Hong Kong.

For those of you who still have any doubts about this, who still believe that the Hong Kong press still enjoys the same freedoms it used to have, let me ask you a few questions.

1. How often do you see the proprietor of a highly popular newspaper coming out to admit publicly that Mainland corporations including major banks are withholding advertisements for political considerations?

2. How often do you see the owner of a highly popular news website coming out to admit publicly that he was closing down his news operation for fear of political reprisal?

3. How often do you see a commercial broadcaster shutting up a highly popular current affairs program host by suddenly terminating her contract?

4. How often do you see over a hundred reporters, editors and news anchors of a major television station signing a joint public statement to criticize the news handling decision of their news controller?

5. How often do you see a veteran journalist who had been the chief editor of an influential newspaper being brutally attacked with a
chopper outside a public park in broad daylight?

When these unbelievable things all happened within a time span of twelve to fifteen months, do you think it is pure co-incidence? For every single incident mentioned here, one might say that perhaps it was an isolated case, that perhaps it was not directly related to press freedom. However, when they came one after another like dominos, the effect on public perception and public confidence was debilitating.

I have stayed in this field for 25 years. I know the climate changes when I see the signs. This is not the first time. Back in 2003 to 2004, when we had a similar situation of an unpopular Chief Executive trying to sell an unpopular policy to the public, we would see powerful people stretching their muscles to try to stamp out any critical voices in the mainstream media. Last time the unpopular policy was national security legislation. This time it is universal suffrage with a nomination screening mechanism. History is repeating itself.

If you need more evidence, to prove that press freedom in Hong Kong is really under threat, I would refer you to the numerous statements and reports published by the Hong Kong Journalists Association, the Foreign Correspondents Club and other professional organizations. The alarm bell has been rung again and again. You may also look at the findings of journalism professors at local universities on media self-censorship, which has gone up, and media credibility, which has gone down.

The latest signal of this worrying trend is the government decision not to prosecute a criminal suspect who was alleged to have assaulted two television journalists performing their duty of reporting in a public gathering. The apparent reason was that the suspect and the actors were allowed to wear hats and masks covering most of their faces in the identification parade, which rendered the victim’s task of identifying the attacker impossible.

Recently I was asked by some young journalism students whether they should join the news profession in light of all these unfavourable developments. I told them all the inconvenient truths. The sad reality is that in many respects now is probably the worst time to be a journalist in Hong Kong. But, nonetheless, I advised them to go ahead and become journalists if they are really interested in news reporting. Why? Because in other respects now is also the best time to become a journalist in Hong Kong with an eye on the future.

Hong Kong will maintain its role as an international financial centre. This is a simple fact recognized by everyone, including the authorities in Beijing. The Chinese leaders may have a different view from the local community regarding democratic development in Hong Kong. But there is no dispute on HK’s role as an international financial centre. During the Occupy Movement last year, Beijing gave the green light for the cross-market stock purchases program between Shanghai and Hong Kong. The timing of the decision surprised many people. It reflected a strong determination to keep HK’s stock market vibrant and useful for Mainland enterprises to raise capital.

As we all know, a truly international financial centre must maintain an environment where there is a free flow of information. You cannot shut Bloomberg down. You cannot ban Facebook or Twitter or Youtube. Last year when the Apple Daily’s highly popular news website was paralyzed by hackers, apparently coming from the north, they decided to upload all their digital news onto Facebook and Youtube. Unless you could shut down the entire internet, you could not stop them from publishing their stories. As a result, the attacks stopped.

Digital news is a totally new ball game. In the past, we, the editors in charge of the news rooms of mainstream media outlets, dictated what the public could read or watch. We the editors decided which item went on the front page and became headline news. Now the game has changed. In the digital world, the crowd decides which piece of news they prefer to read and to share. This crowd judging and crowd sharing has changed the balance of power between the editors and the readers. The accumulated hit rate and online viewership of any news item depends on the crowd, not the editors.

Also, the 24 hours real time functioning nature of the highly transparent digital news world renders media self-censorship extremely difficult. If a news room chief in Hong Kong decides to ban a piece of newsworthy digital material from publication, he or she may soon find the material spreading like wildfire on the Internet, and the decision to censor it will quickly become a news story in itself.

For young people who grew up in the digital age, they can acquire the invaluable communication skills necessary in the new era much more quickly than their senior news managers or executives. They know how to push the gist of the news to their readers’ smartphones apps or their social networks. They know how to make it sticky and catchy. In just a few years, they would have accumulated online news making and spreading experiences that cannot be matched by traditional journalists, even those with 20 years of experience.

Diving into the digital news world might be a risky business for some media organizations. Subscriptions are hard to find. Until recently, advertising revenue was thin. But the scene is quickly changing. Online advertising has been growing at a double digit year on year since 2013. Readership migration from traditional to digital is unstoppable. In the coming few years, digital first will no longer be a slogan. It will become a business necessity. Young journalists have nothing to lose if they dive into this trend right now.

So, in this respect, now is the best time to be a journalist of the new media in Hong Kong.

Source: www.humanrightspressawards.org
Editing: bc magazine

RTHK Director Roy Tang opposes Freedom of Expression

All is not well at RTHK as Director Roy Tang demands the removal of ‘promoting freedom of expression and a democratic society’ from Producers Guidelines.

Here’s the original story in Chinese: 港台《製作人員守則》修訂鄧忍光要求刪去「促進言論自由、民主社會」段落. With a quick translation provided by reddit user wheeloffire:

Roy Tang ‘harmonises’ RTHK Guidelines, demands the deletion of ‘promoting freedom of expression and a democratic society’ RTHK, which has had some ‘harmonious misgivings’ several times in recent years, now has a new crisis. Post 852 has obtained an internal RTHK document showing that RTHK staff have recommended that administration amend the Producers’ Guidelines. However they were met with Broadcasting Director Roy Tang’s demand that the words ‘promoting freedom of expression, open and democratic society’ be removed from the revision. When Tang’s demand was met with opposition, he further rudely asserted his stance one by one to the administration at a meeting.

According to the document, the ‘harmonised version’ of the revision will be implemented unless additional action is taken. The RTHK Union criticised the decision-making process as crude and unreasonable and appealed to RTHK staff to help to turn the tide [in favour of the original revision].

Besides the Charter of RTHK, RTHK has ‘Producers’ Guidelines‘ (Guidelines) which serve as basis for the editorial staff’s operations. The Forward of the Guidelines states that RTHK codified their tried and tested programme editorial practices into the Guidelines to enhance the transparency and accountability of RTHK’s operation. The Guidelines reflected not only RTHK’s working principles but also social norms and standards.

As the Guidelines had been neither reviewed or revised since 2003 and thus may have become outdated in part, RTHK formed a representative working group last year with delegates from more than 20 different departments. It is Post 852‘s understanding is that it was chaired by Assistant Director of Broadcasting Tai Keen-man. The working group met more than 10 times since May 2013 to discuss and propose specific recommendations on revising the Guidelines.

Originally, this was to be a very simple affair, yet now the situation appears to have changed. Post 852 obtained a non-public document that the RTHK Programme Staff Union (Union) issued to RTHK staff and found that the Director of Broadcasting had brutally demanded deleting a section of the proposed revised text.

It’s said that working group had reached a consensus last year and proposed amendments to paragraphs in the first chapter of the Guidelines which referred to public broadcasting. The Union document provides the revised English language (item 1), translated by the newspaper as follows [here’s the original instead]:

‘As a public service broadcaster, RTHK pledges to uphold the core values of editorial independence and impartiality. We take public interest as the basis of our work. We share the values and missions of public broadcasters around the world, namely universality, diversity, independence and distinctiveness of programming. We promote freedom of expression, open and democratic society, civic participation and a caring community. We also pledge to serve the people, produce quality programmes, nurture talent, monitor any infringement of public interest, and retain the trust that the community has placed in us.’

No related definitions under UNESCO

However RTHK administration subsequently told the working group that they had reservations about the above proposed revision. They believed that the sentence ‘We promote freedom of expression, open and democratic society, civic participation and a caring community’ (the ‘Freedom of Expression sentence’) was not defined under United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for public broadcasters, and so they returned the revision back to the working group for further discussion.

The working group then held three meetings during which the group again consulted discourse on public broadcasting from UNESCO, Asia Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIB), and European Broadcasting Union (EBU). They found support for the core values of freedom of expression and open and democratic societies running throughout the organisational documents of major broadcasters and that it was in line with the international community’s understanding of public broadcasting. As a result, in November 2013 the working group unanimously carried the motion to retain the original proposed revision.

Post 852 looked at UNESCO’s website and found that, although UNESCO does not directly state that public broadcasters must promote democracy, it stresses that the public broadcasting ‘is vital to the functioning of democratic societies’ and ‘can serve as a cornerstone of democracy’ (note 2). In other words, according to the spirit of UNESCO, public broadcasting was originally also a tool to promote the development of democracy and it can be seen that the working group’s proposals were not unreasonable.

Relevant lines from UNESCO:
This brochure presents in a simple and direct style an entirely up-to-date summary of the basic concepts relating to public broadcasting, which is vital to the functioning of democratic societies.
When guaranteed with pluralism, programming diversity, editorial independence, appropriate funding, accountability and transparency, public service broadcasting can serve as a cornerstone of democracy.

link to reddit article: http://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/24iset/rthk_broadcasting_director_demands_the_deletion/