Freedom of the press: China and Hong Kong
Not one has ever complained to me that they couldn't run a favorable story about China. In fact, pieces about how swell China's economy was doing were the vogue for twenty years until China's mighty ship of economic delusional granduer splintered to toothpicks on the rocky reefs of reality this year. As for Hong Kong in general, the recent re"election" of wildly unpopular chief administrator Tung Chee-Hwa pretty much says it all. As for the South China Morning Post, it seems to remain a good paper, but I have been subscribing for three years and there is a LOT less pithy stuff about the mainland than their used to be. I noted that while the SCMP denied Jasper Becker's allegations, they did not state WHY they fired one of the great China reporter/scholars. They also would be at a loss to explain why so many other incisive editors/writers about the mainland have lost jobs there... Hmmmmmmmmmmmm".
My comment: the SCMP did explain wny it fired Becker, although the Hong Kong press club remained unconvinced.
Ronald Hilton - 5/8/02
Bill Ratliff e-mails me that he has met Paul Simon and has dinner with him in a memorable restaurant. When he returns I will ask him for the menu, in view of our discussion of Chinese cuisine. Meanwhile, Paul contributes this item to our discussion of press problems in Hong Kong: "I'm friendly with a lot of the western print media folks in China. We stay off the record and have some good conversations. The very fact that I won't put their names in this e-mail because the Ministry of State Security reads my e-mails and may harass them or me if I do sort of says it all.
| Webmaster |