The Basic Law, with its promise of “one country, two systems”, is a mini-constitution that guarantees Hong Kong citizens’ rights to freedom of speech and a free press. Since the handover, however, Beijing has exerted political pressure and indirect influence on Hong Kong’s media via political, economic, and physical threats (HKJA, 2017).
The chairperson of the journalists’ association admitted that attempts to directly influence journalists or newsrooms are sometimes made by politicians or their seniors. This generally reflects the current situation of Hong Kong news media.
There is further political pressure on RTHK from complaints lodged over news programmes from the pro-establishment camp. Two recent examples are the controversy over an interview with a World Health Organization advisor and the reaction of the Hong Kong police to a satirical programme. In the first case, RTHK’s reporters interviewed Dr. Bruce Aylward of the World Health Organization and asked if the organisation would reconsider Taiwan’s membership. Dr. Aylward refused to answer the question and then ended the call. Edward Yau, the Secretary for Commerce and Industry, criticised the interview on the basis that it would endanger a sense of identity (Hamlett, 2020). In the second case, police chief Chris Tang wrote a public letter addressed to the director of RTHK following the screening of a satirical programme mocking the Hong Kong police. Production of the show was suspended in response (Gunia, 2020). The interviewees from RTHK acknowledged they had put a lot of effort into dealing with complaints from pro-establishment viewers alleging anti-government coverage during the anti-extradition bill movement, despite their news programmes winning local and international journalism awards. Several times, interviewees reported becoming more “cautious” and trying to maintain their “professionalism” as strategies to combat the political pressures they were facing.
The interviewees suggest that commercial interests are highly related to political interests. They said that Hong Kong news media experiences other types of political pressure by experiencing advertising boycotts due to their political stands, and they cannot access sources from pro-establishment parties or political actors. Most of the interviewees denied intervention from the advertisers.
The news media outlets also experienced political pressure in a more flagrant way. In 2018, the Financial Times Asia Editor Victor was denied entry to Hong Kong. This was because, when he worked as vice president of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club, it held a talk by a pro-independence activist. HKFP’s staff and the editors’ families received threatening letters. Hong Kong Causeway Bay booksellers were abducted or lured from Hong Kong because they published and sold politically sensitive books. One of the publishers, Lam Wing-kee, escaped and told the public they were detained in China.
New laws with a potential to threaten the freedom of press were introduced, and a national anthem law was passed amid controversy and opposition. A Hong Kong extradition bill was proposed to transfer suspects to mainland China, despite the totally different judicial systems, provoking the largest mass protest in Hong Kong’s history. Almost all the interviewees admitted that they or their colleagues have experienced brutal acts by the police (HKJA, 2020a).
The enactment of the Hong Kong national security law also threatens the press freedom in Hong Kong. A recent survey of journalists found that 98 per cent disagreed with the plan to enactment the law. Almost 90 per cent of respondents in the survey are afraid of the deterioration of press freedom, and over half of them were very worried that the passage of the national security law would pose a threat to their personal safety. Over 70 per cent suggested their media will cut or avoid reporting sensitive topics, such as Hong Kong Independence, after the enactment of the law (HKJA, 2020b).
The ownership of Hong Kong media is not highly concentrated, and yet, many Hong Kong media organisations have similar interests in terms of their alliance with the Central Government (see Indicator E2 – Media ownership concentration regional (local) level). Luckily, there are still a plenty of local and international media organisations with different political stands, allowing journalists to change from one media company to another. There is also public outcry about self-censorship from news media workers and the general public.
Since June 2019, another external influence has been police brutality against journalists and attacks by supporters of different political camps. A study conducted by the HKJA revealed that only 28 out of 222 surveyed journalists said they had not experienced police violence while covering the recent protests, and over half said they had been treated violently by the police on five or more occasions. The attacks included “physical and verbal abuse and the deliberate obstruction of journalists’ reporting, such as pushing reporters, and pulling off their gas masks, and aiming pepper spray, rubber bullets, as well as water cannon at them”, with frontline reporters saying they had developed skin conditions, such as rashes, redness, or itchiness, after tear gas exposure (HKJA, 2020a). Dr. Kwong, a district councillor who also works as a doctor, interviewed more than 170 reporters in August 2019 and found that over 96 per cent of respondents said “they had difficulty breathing, persistent coughing or coughed up blood” (Chan, 2019).
In the same HKJA study, 82 of the 222 journalists said they had been violently attacked by supporters of different political stances while covering the anti-extradition movement. Half of these reported being subject to attacks from supporters of the police and 37 per cent from protestors. Most of these attacks involved verbal abuse, pushing, and deliberate obstruction of reporting, although a few said that they had been attacked by triad gang members (HKJA, 2020a). Recently, police had unreasonably forced reporters to kneel or squat down.
Alongside the physical abuse suffered while covering the protests, the interviewees suggested that their colleagues in the same newsroom or other news organisations had become doxing targets, experiencing online harassment, and having their personal data leaked. The leaking of data resulted in harassment by phone, and online threats by “little pink thumbs”.
The implementation of the new national security law also has profound impact on news media. Jimmy Lai, the 71-year-old media tycoon and prominent pro-democracy figure, was arrested on 10 August 2020 and was accused of committing foreign collusion crimes in breach of Beijing’s national security law and conspiracy to defraud. Nine others were also arrested, including Lai’s two sons and four senior executives at his company Next Digital Media, the publisher of pro-democracy Apple Daily, Hong Kong’s largest daily tabloid. Hundreds of police stayed at the Apple Daily building, and in an unprecedented hour-long raid, they searched the news materials without court permission. Later, police barred news organisations – including Reuters, Agence France-Presse, the Associated Press, and the public broadcaster RTHK – from attending a press conference about the search.
Eight press associations, including the HKJA, Hong Kong Press Photographers Association, Independent Commentators Association, and Journalism Educators for Press Freedom, as well as Hong Kong Citizen News Union, Ming Pao Staff Association, Next Media Trade Union, and RTHK Program Staff Union, issued a joint statement urging the police to explain the purpose and legal basis of the search.
