Why there is more to media ethics than Hong Kong’s security chief suggests
Hong Kong Free Press
Here is a puzzle. The other week Yazhou Zhoukan, a news magazine which has baffled foreigners’ efforts to pronounce its name properly since the early 1990s, hosted an event and invited a guest to address the assembled multitudes.
The guest was the Secretary for Security Chris Tang. This is a strange choice. In the days when I was often invited to or running such things, you usually got the director of information services. This person at least had some knowledge of media matters, although I recall interviewing a freshly minted one on an RTHK programme who was suffering not so much from stage fright as from television terror.
On particularly important occasions you might get the home affairs secretary, who was responsible for the government’s media policy. Occasionally more prestigious people than me might be able to rope in the city’s leader. Nobody thought the security chief would be relevant.
See also: Hong Kong’s Ming Pao newspaper urges columnists to be ‘prudent’ and ‘law-abiding’
Tang is also an odd choice because he takes a rather jaundiced view of media matters and his oratorical repertoire does not extend to the “soft answer that turneth away wrath.” Indeed his thoughts about reporting tend towards Trumpism with Hong Kong characteristics: complaints about “fake news,” and warnings of the wrath to come.
True to form, he turned up with a complaint about an unnamed newspaper and an unnamed columnist, instantly recognised by connoisseurs as a reference to Ming Pao and Johannes Chan, who writes for the paper on legal matters.
And he warned that no protection from trouble could be obtained by a precaution widely adopted among the press in Hong Kong of putting at the end of an article a rubric stating that if a piece is critical it is “is meant to point out mistakes or flaws in the system, policy, or measure… The purpose is to facilitate the correction or elimination of such mistakes or flaws … there is absolutely no intention to incite hatred, disaffection or enmity against the government or other communities.”
This is a rough summary of part of the old Crimes Ordinance definition of sedition, incorporated with minor changes in the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, which states that pointing out flaws with a view to their correction shall not be regarded as seditious. Sober discussion of public policy is still allowed.
Actually, I do not think any of the newspapers which have adopted this precaution suppose that it provides any protection as such. It is more a pre-emptive reminder to readers in the law and order industry that some speech does still have legal protection. Clearly if the article preceding the precaution calls for the overthrow of the Chinese Communist Party or the assassination of the chief executive, then legal consequences will still ensue.
Tang’s message was that “overseas columnists” had “deliberately misinterpreted government policies or official speeches and misled readers.” If a newspaper “condones such writers and their biased essays, it will have corrupted society and created divisions.”
Editors had a responsibility to ensure that a publication was “fair, objective and unbiased,” he concluded.
Well, the short answer to that is that the search for fairness and objectivity does not seem to trouble the media which are in fact or in practice in the government’s pocket. Is Ta Kung Pao fair and unbiased? Is the China Daily?
The long answer is that this is a simplistic answer to a very complex question. Issues of public policy often do not lend themselves to a treatment which will satisfy all the stakeholders involved.
A good example is the controversy which Tang may have had in mind. Chan, who as a former dean of the law faculty at the University of Hong Kong may be supposed to know something of what he writes about, opined that recent legislation limiting national security prisoners’ access to early release schemes might infringe on their human rights.
The government reply, which was attributed to the Correctional Services Department (CSD) but appeared to come from the same Outrage Factory as similar complaints on other matters, said that Chan’s essay was “factually inaccurate” because early release had “never been a guaranteed right under the laws of Hong Kong.”
But this is based on a misunderstanding. Of course a prisoner did not have a guaranteed right to early release, any more than someone who takes a driving test has a guaranteed right to a driving licence.
But the early release schemes are not a mysterious present bestowed by the CSD on deserving inmates. They are regulated by statute and rules. So it is at least arguable that changing the rules after the prisoner has been convicted is a violation of their right to be dealt with according to the laws in force when they committed the offence.
The reply went on to say that Chan had “misled readers to believe that if a [prisoner] is not granted remission … it would be tantamount to receiving a heavier sentence and a breach of the Hong Kong Bill of Rights.”
Here we may have a linguistic problem. It is I suppose true that whether a prisoner is refused early release, or granted it, in either case the sentence remains the same. The prisoner allowed release is still expected to conform to rules about supervision, residence and good behaviour. If they violate the conditions of their release they can be recaptured to serve the rest of the sentence inside. So in that rather pedantic legal sense, it is true that a prisoner who is refused early release is not receiving a heavier sentence.
On the other hand, in the ordinary everyday use of language, someone who is expecting to be able to apply for early release after two years and then discovers that because of a change in the rules they are going to be behind bars for three is likely to regard this quite legitimately as “tantamount to receiving a heavier sentence.”
Cambridge Dictionary definition of “tantamount”: “being almost the same or having the same effect as something, usually something bad.”
When you get to complex matters of opinion, the idea of being “fair, objective and unbiased” does not get you very far. In reporting on simple conflict situations, fairness can be supplied, or at least simulated, by giving equal attention to both sides: workers and employers, Tories and Labour, prosecution and defence, Manchester United and Liverpool (unless you are working for a Liverpool paper).
Objectivity is regarded as a myth by philosophers. I cherish the memory of a student orator in a debate at the London School of Economics who provoked much mirth by announcing his intention to discuss the “objective situation as I see it.” Well, we can all only see the objective situation as we see it. For reporters objectivity is a style: third-person voice, no evaluative or emotional words, all facts attributed to sources or speakers and so on.
Unbiased is code for agreeing with the speaker. Are we supposed to be unbiased with regard to crime, domestic violence, traffic accidents, genocide…?
There is also an important difference between the writing of facts and the writing of opinions. Facts, as an early editor of the Guardian put it, are sacred. In their pursuit fairness and objectivity are legitimate targets, however elusive in practice. Opinion writing is another matter.
The writer of an opinion piece is seeking to persuade. Being fair to your opponent may help you to be persuasive, but is not compulsory. Of course you will not be objective and you will certainly be biased. But opinions are specifically protected in Section 24 of the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, which includes the phrase “give an opinion.”
Let us see if we can put this in a way which will help Tang. That Tang is the secretary for security is a fact. That Hong Kong would be a happier place if someone less abrasive was doing the job would be an opinion.
Support HKFP | Policies & Ethics | Error/typo? | Contact Us | Newsletter | Transparency & Annual Report | Apps
Help safeguard press freedom & keep HKFP free for all readers by supporting our team
| HKFP is an impartial platform & does not necessarily share the views of opinion writers or advertisers. HKFP presents a diversity of views & regularly invites figures across the political spectrum to write for us. Press freedom is guaranteed under the Basic Law, security law, Bill of Rights and Chinese constitution. Opinion pieces aim to point out errors or defects in the government, law or policies, or aim to suggest ideas or alterations via legal means without an intention of hatred, discontent or hostility against the authorities or other communities. |
HKFP has an impartial stance, transparent funding, and balanced coverage guided by an Ethics Code and Corrections Policy.
Support press freedom & help us surpass 1,000 monthly Patrons: 100% independent, governed by an ethics code & not-for-profit.