Protesters are pepper sprayed by riot police during a confrontation in the Mong Kok shopping district of Hong Kong on Friday evening.
Protesters in Hong Kong say they want real democracy. Specifically, they want the central government in China to grant Hong Kong voters the right to choose their own chief executive. But there’s another issue that demonstrators often bring up, and that is freedom of the press.
Many Hong Kongers fear that Beijing is putting the squeeze on their famously freewheeling news media.
The Apple Daily tabloid is one of the most popular newspapers in Hong Kong. It has a well-deserved reputation for being both sensational in tone and politically, it’s an unapologetic supporter of the “Occupy Movement” protests. For that reason, the news operation has become a favorite target for the “anti-Occupy” crowd.
For several days this week, crowds of pro-China demonstrators have gathered at the Apple Daily’s headquarters. They come to try to prevent the latest edition of the newspaper from being put on delivery trucks. And the protesters are just one prong of a larger campaign.
The Apple Daily’s founder, Jimmy Lai, who helps fund Hong Kong’s democratic parties, has received threats from criminal gangs known as the triads. Last year, when a car crashed at Lai’s home, a hatchet and a knife were left at the scene. More recently, the newspaper’s website has been hacked repeatedly.
All this is a reminder that the political battle for Hong Kong’s future is not just taking place in the streets, but in the news media as well. And those fighting for a vibrant and free press say they are losing.
“In reality, what we are experiencing is [a] gradual erosion of press freedom,” says Shirley Yam of the Hong Kong Journalists Association. In fact, the word “erosion” might be putting it too mildly, she adds.
To make her point, Yam spreads three local newspapers on the desk in front of her. On the day we met, a story had just come out alleging a secret payout of several million dollars by Hong Kong’s chief executive, CY Leung. Even at that early stage, the story had the ring of a huge potential scandal.
But only one of the Hong Kong papers had the story on its front page, Yam noticed. One paper had a short mention of the story on its third page, and the third didn't mention it until page six.
“What sort of news judgment is that?” she asks.
Yam says it’s just the latest example of a disturbing trend of self-censorship in the Hong Kong news media.
The story of House News is another. The Hong Kong website started two years ago, setting out to fill an important niche, says writer and contributor Evan Fowler.
“There was a need for a new news source, a source which would not be political,” Fowler says.
House News was meant to be, “a bit like Huffington Post, which was the model.”
“It would be the voices of the people,” Fowler explains.
As an upstart news site, Fowler says House News was very successful. It attracted big brand advertisers and lots of readers. Then suddenly, over the summer, Fowler says he got a rather mysterious message from a colleague. “There’s a storm brewing,” it said. And he should stop writing articles for the site.
Soon after that, House News was shut down. The announcement came in the form of a statement from founder Tony Tsoi, who talked about fear and “white terror.”
“The current political climate,” he wrote, “is suffocating.” Tsoi mentioned business interests in China. He also mentioned his family.
Fowler, whose Hong Kong roots go back four generations, says the shuttering of House News was another low point for press freedom in the Chinese territory.
“[It] wasn’t just economic pressure, and I think that was really quite new to Hong Kong,” Fowler says. “For someone like Tony, someone who’s very careful with his words, to start talking about fear and an atmosphere of fear, that just wasn’t Hong Kong.”
When I asked Fowler for his short explanation as to why the news site was closed, he said it was because it was a platform China had no control over.
The most shocking attack on the Hong Kong press came early this year. Newspaper editor Kevin Lau, known for his independent voice, was assaulted with a meat cleaver in broad daylight. Lau was in critical condition, but he survived. Suspects are now facing trial. Lau declined an invitation for an interview, saying he was not ready to talk about what happened.
But veteran Hong Kong journalist Frank Ching says the attack on Lau was clearly meant to send a message.
“The message was, ‘This can happen to you, if you’re not careful,’” Ching says.
“People are supposed to exercise care and not say things that go beyond the pale. I think that they’re supposed to self-censor and not write things that will put the Chinese government in a bad light,” he adds.
There are some bright spots in Hong Kong’s media scene, to be sure. Several upstart news websites appear to be thriving right now, covering the protests that have captured attention all over the world. But these are not the kind of news organizations China’s leadership would celebrate.
President Xi Jinping gave a speech this week in which he praised two Chinese bloggers. They’re both known as staunch nationalists who write about the evils of western culture. One of them has even compared America’s aggressions toward China to Hitler’s vilification of the Jews.