The Hong Kong Press Council is a self-governing body founded by professional journalists in Hong Kong in 2000. It is an independent, non-profit organisation that aims to enhance the professional and ethical standards of journalism by handling complaints against local newspapers from the general public. This organisation’s code of ethics was drafted by four major journalist bodies: the Hong Kong Journalists Association, the Hong Kong Federation of Journalists, the Hong Kong News Executives’ Association, and the Hong Kong Press Photographers’ Association. However, the two most popular newspapers, Apple Daily and Oriental Daily, are not members of the Hong Kong Press Council, while many of the complaints the organisation receives actually concern these two papers. In 2018, the organisation began to handle complaints about online media. The number of complaints received in 2017 totalled 32. When complaints are found to be justified, the organisation issues a public statement critical of the media organisation in question. However, the Hong Kong Press Council is not legally protected from defamation laws (Hong Kong Press Council, 2020), and the HKJA has established its own code of ethics in an effort to raise professional standards.
While most interviewees stressed that they respected the codes of ethics set out by the aforementioned bodies or by their companies, they generally were unable to recall or recount their details. However, they reported that they adhered to the professional journalistic principles they learned at their universities or observed in their newsrooms.
