DATELINE: HONG KONG

Judge us on what we publish!: Jonathan Fenby

Fenby: To be the best possible paper we can for our particular readership in Hong Kong.

Knight: Tell me about your readership. The Post used to be seen as the paper of the English establishment here.

Fenby: There was a time when a lot of people would look at the Post to see what the British government thought or what the big British interests here were thinking. The readership of the paper at present is between sixty and sixty five percent Chinese. Another ten precedent would be non-Chinese Asians. So three quarters of the readership are Asian people living in Hong Kong. That's a long way from the conventional view from outside which would be that because of the history of the paper and because we are in English language, we are therefore an expatriate newspaper.

If you looked at the paper fifteen years ago, you would find the automatic assumption that really quite minor events in Britain were the natural area of interest for the readership. Whereas you would not find that to be the case today. Over the last couple of years we have developed a much more Asian coverage both in the news and in the features, analysis and business sections. That's not a political, as such. It's a reflection of what we think our readers are interested in.

The Post seeks to reflect the different layers of Hong Kong. We report the law courts, crime, big traffic accidents, land slips, whatever it may be and so on. That is reporting Hong Kong as the town newspaper of Hong Kong. We are then reporting Hong Kong as a political centre. We are reporting Hong Kong as a business and finance centre. We are trying to reflect the Hong Kong China relationship; hence the China page. We Are reporting Hong Kong as the Asian centre and as an international centre.

That's obviously different from fifteen years ago when the paper saw itself as primarily reporting Hong Kong as a British colony.

Knight: Will reporting these things be more difficult after July?

Fenby: I can't see any reason why it should.

Knight: Yet there is quite a difference between the way western journalists operate and say Xinhua.

Fenby: We are the Post . I don't think anyone is suggesting that Xinhua be the yardstick for the way the media operate in the SAR.

Knight: But surely the difficulty is working out what the yardstick is going to be?

Fenby: I have no idea.

Knight: There's been a lot of talk about Hong Kong papers needing to be more responsible to the government, in the way they are in Singapore. Has there been any of that sort of pressure on the Post?

Fenby: None at all.

Knight: Has Tung Chi-hwa's office had any talks with the Post?

Fenby: Not that I have seen. As in most parts of the world, the editor of a newspaper would meet people in government and yet this is seen by some people as extremely sinister. There's been no contact about what we should do and how we should do it. When I first arrived here, I received a couple of calls from government house suggesting how stories might be handled in some ways. Although they deny it, I was so surprised that I took a note of it. On one Saturday night they were actually suggesting I should move a story off the front page because it might embarrass the governor. The reality is, everywhere that I have worked , those in charge of media relations, the spin doctors. their job is to ring up newspapers and try to influence them in one way or another. In England some of the calls I have had; from cabinet ministers trying to put us off running a story embarrassing to them. So I am not shocked if spin doctors here, whether in government or in commerce, should try to influence us. I can honestly say that no-one from Tung Chi-hwa's office has got into that game, as far as I am concerned.

As of the first of July, Hong Kong will be an SAR. You are assuming that people in Beijing want the Hong Kong media to operate like the media in China. No-body has ever proved that. Of course Hong Kong commercially operated media and media in China which are part of the state apparatus, are completely different. You have to believe and trust that this will be so. You have to think that the SAR will have to preserve the Hong Kong media system. That is part of the two systems in the one country, That will be one of the fascinating things to see what happens.

Knight: Will there be a need for journalists to be more sensitive or careful after the handover?

Fenby: It could well be yes. It could well be no. I don't know how the media is going to be regarded. it's a question many people ask. But what have you got to go on? Very little. We are going to be in uncharted waters. If you take what you do know, what has been said by somebody who will be in an extremely important position here after the first of July, the free press, the independent press, should continue and should do everything to ensure it does continue. When you have Anson Chan (the Chief Secretary) saying publicly and on several occasions that is actually a statement about the future, no-body takes a blind bit of notice of it.

Knight: Mr. Feng has been appointed [as a consultant] to your own paper. [See report] He has extensive contacts in China and is well regarded by many in the west. What sort of advice has he been giving you about coverage?

Fenby: That is not his role. I am the editor of the paper.

Knight: Is it fair to ask what his role would be?

Fenby: His role is to be a consultant and a consultant is there because we may want to do things in China where a consultant may help you to achieve, to get done. Just like a lot of companies in Hong Kong have consultants who help them with their activities in China, help them to expand. You can a point of view of denial of saying that July the first does not really exist and just pretend China does not exist and it will go away. Or you could take the attitude I would take that it's happening and China is there. It's a huge story and part of our role at the Post should be to be reporting on China as fully as possible, given our readership that exists with the thousands of journalists who will be here over the next few weeks. It is in the interests of information in general and this paper in particular to be able to expand its coverage of China and if you want a consultant to help you do that, it seems a logical way to go.

Knight: Would the coverage of the Chinese People's Congress later this year, be the sort of thing you have in mind?

Fenby: I trust you would see results before then. You already have but you don't know them. From one point of view, if you read the paper you already have. I am not going to announce what my various editorial projects I am working on, for obvious competitive reasons.

The difficulty is that people see all this because it has to be a sinister story to make it a story. It all fits very neatly together. As a journalist, I can entirely understand this. The trouble is that it does not actually accord with reality.

Knight: Where then do you see the Post in five years time?

Fenby: To answer that you have to say where you see Hong Kong. Newspapers always interrelate with the society in which they operate. Obviously what happens to Hong Kong and what happens to the Post are linked together. I would like to see the Post remaining as an independent, objective newspaper in Hong Kong as part of China.

Knight: Do you think Hong Kong will remain as important as it has been for the English language coverage of the media?

Fenby: Probably. There is such a strong media base here to begin with. It is commercially strong, giving it apolitical roots here. I think that will continue. I think the independence and strength of the media here does contribute something to the overall success of Hong Kong. There is a free flow of information, a free flow of ideas. I hope that is something that people, even though they sometimes may be irritated by the media here may recognise.

Knight: The Standard's Alan Castro would say that there may be a need for self censorship. He said there was a thin line between self censorship and responsible journalism.

Fenby: This whole self censorship thing, I understand it entirely as a journalist. Bring in the term "censorship" and you have a nice sexy word. Self censorship is a given here now. If one denies it, it's a bit like answering to, "When did you stop beating your wife?".

Look at other parts of the world. Take Britain. It was accepted coinage in a lot of English papers that you approached the news from an angle of political bias, You would give a lot of coverage to Mrs. Thatcher and very little to Neil Kinnock. In one paper I worked for, if Mrs. Thatcher had found the elixir for everlasting life, the story would have read, "Labour last night denounced Mrs. Thatcher for...". The Washington Post last summer did that long investigation into Bob Dole's private life and found about his affair and the editor spike the story. Is that self censorship?

I would say that we are either applying self censorship or applying political bias. If a newspaper in Hong Kong decides to take a particular line or play up a story, in the canons of the press, that is reprehensible. Yet is the reality in many places, even though here people talk of political bias or slanting the news. You suddenly have the phrase of "censorship" coming in; a sexy totalitarian word.

The paper has a responsibility to be accurate and reflect different points of view. That is not self censorship.

Editors sometimes think a story can be better written. When they do that here, people easily read a political message into it, even though it may have been done for straightforward political reasons.

The Post for obvious political, social and linguistic reasons has become this target from particularly the Anglo American press and some politicians here. You go back to them and say let's have a few examples and none are produced ever. I ask them what they are talking about and they say, "Oh everybody knows it". How can I prove a negative? I can't.

People who would say they are the defenders of freedom of the press can't resist taking a baseless pot shot at a newspaper which is actually doing what they say they are reporting. There is something quite unhealthy in this.

Alan Knight