Journalists in Hong Kong have a high education level, with almost 60 per cent of Hong Kong reporters holding undergraduate degrees and 16 per cent having received postgraduate education. Men outnumber women in the profession; in 2016, the male-to-female ratio was 51/47 (HKJA, 2016). However, women outnumber men in terms of advanced education level; 58 per cent of all female journalists are college graduates, whereas only 42 per cent of men have post-secondary education.
Roughly half of the respondents said that their companies allot satisfactory time and resources for investigative research, and their companies have teams established to manage and contribute investigative reports. As the sole public service broadcaster, RTHK does not have sufficient resources to engage in investigative reportage. With its limited resources, RTHK can only handle regular programmes; however, a few of its journalists still manage to produce diligent, informative investigative reports.
The interviewees said that their workloads continue to increase and that they are required to have multimedia skills. There is no continuous education or training for journalists on professional ethics, but there is training on an ad hoc basis; for example, some media organisations provide training on the ethical coverage of large protests. The chairperson of the journalists’ association stated that Hong Kong journalists maintain good professional standards, even though they work for media organisations with political stances differing from their own.
