By Ned Levin and Yvonne Lee
HONG KONG--As Hong Kong lumbers through its fourth week of
pro-democracy protests, the variety of coverage in the local media
has laid bare stark differences in visions for the city's
future.
Hong Kong has free-speech protections not available on the
mainland, and the territory's 18 daily newspapers and multiple
television and radio channels have given the student-led protests
wall-to-wall coverage, airing multiple--often clashing --
viewpoints.
On one side are pro-Beijing newspapers like Ta Kung Pao, which
portrays the protests as illegal and unruly. On the other is Apple
Daily, which is known for a strident anti-Beijing stance and has
long backed calls for a democratic procedure to select the city's
politicians.
"You have a spectrum," said Yuen-Ying Chan, director of the
Journalism and Media Studies Centre at the University of Hong Kong.
"Between them, you try to find the truth."
The split has been clear in the coverage of events. Last week,
the beating of a demonstrator by Hong Kong police was caught on
video and led to the suspension of the officers allegedly involved.
The incident led to widely diverging news reports.
Apple Daily splashed "Seven Demon Police Surround and Beat
Protester for Four Minutes" across its front page, accompanied by
photos of the demonstrator's bruised back and face.
Ta Kung Pao focused on what it called the violent behavior of
protesters, whom police had been trying to clear from a tunnel
before the beating. "Police Assaulted," one of the headlines read,
while another labeled protesters "Roadside Despots."
The student-led protests want anyone to be able to stand for the
city's first democratic elections, slated for 2017. China's
government ruled this summer that candidates must first be screened
by a nominating committee largely loyal to Beijing.
Students took to the streets in late September, blocking major
intersections. They gained support from some residents and
condemnation from others. There have been few surveys on support
for the protests, leaving media outlets as a prominent battleground
for public opinion.
While battle lines have long been drawn between papers like Ta
Kung Pao and Apple Daily, free-speech advocates say they are uneasy
about the dominance of other mainstream newspapers by tycoons with
business interests in China. "The temptation, of course, is to not
offend mainland China," Ms. Chan said.
Ming Pao is owned by Malaysian timber tycoon Tiong Hiew King,
the English-language South China Morning Post is owned by
Malaysia's Kuok family, whose interests include agribusiness and
hotels, while Richard Li, son of Asia's richest man, Li Ka-shing,
owns the Hong Kong Economic Journal and a pay-TV channel.
Alice Kwok, the chief editor of the Hong Kong Economic Journal,
said she didn't feel any pressure from Beijing on how to cover the
protests. Ming Pao and the South China Morning Post declined to
comment. Ta Kung Pao didn't respond to requests for comment.
Apple Daily -- whose owner, Jimmy Lai, says he has no business
dealings in mainland China -- perhaps has faced the most
difficulties during the protests.
The newspaper has experienced attacks on its website and
demonstrations by pro-Beijing groups outside a complex containing
its headquarters and printing plant, delaying the distribution of
newspapers.
Officials at Next Media, Apple Daily's parent company, said
sales of print copies have increased regardless during the
protests. Mr. Lai, a businessman who founded the newspaper in the
1990s, shrugged off the attacks. "We don't feel any threat," Mr.
Lai said. "They are just nuisances."
But Next Media said it has suffered advertising losses due to
pressure from Beijing. The group said HSBC Holdings PLC and
Standard Chartered PLC pulled millions of dollars in advertising
late last year on a request from the Chinese government amid Apple
Daily's pro-democracy coverage.
A Chinese government representative denied the allegation, and
representatives of both banks called the move a purely commercial
decision.
"The central government will ask the business sector to pull
advertisements to penalize unfriendly media that criticizes their
policies," said Bruce Lui, a former television journalist and a
lecturer at Hong Kong Baptist University.
Coverage of the recent beating by police of a protester has
caused trouble at Television Broadcasts Ltd., or TVB, a large
free-to-air channel whose cameraman caught the event on video. More
than 140 TVB employees signed an open letter to senior management
protesting how the network handled the coverage.
In the letter, the employees complained about changes made to a
voice-over accompanying the video that said police had punched and
kicked the protester. The voice-over was removed and the video ran
for several hours without narration, the employees wrote, until a
new voice-over was added saying police may have used force.
The journalists expressed "regret" over the change and urged
citizens to "cherish the unique press freedom Hong Kong has,
support the independent interviews of our reporters, and avoid
obstructing their reporting of the facts."
TVB declined to make an executive available for comment. The
station referred to a letter its head of news wrote on Oct. 15 to
the Hong Kong Journalists Association that defended the coverage as
fair. The letter said the station felt it had to be careful with
language as the incident could have become a legal case.
Some journalists have left traditional media to start their own
online ventures. One editor, Yuen Yiu-ching, left the Hong Kong
Economic Journal last year with three colleagues, claiming
management refused to run an article criticizing TVB for favorable
coverage of Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, the city's
top official who many student protesters view as pro-Beijing. Ms.
Kwok of the Hong Kong Economic Journal declined to comment on the
matter.
Mr. Yuen and his colleagues launched Post852 earlier this year.
The online news organization's posts on the protests have garnered
large viewership.
"We have no constraints," Mr. Yuen said. "I think that more and
more citizen reporters will emerge, and they will do their best to
tell the people the truth."
Fiona Law contributed to this article.
Write to Ned Levin at ned.levin@wsj.com and Yvonne Lee at
yvonne.lee@wsj.com
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