MCLC: SCMP turns to mainland

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: paul mooney <pjmooney at me.com>
Subject: SCMP turns to mainland
***********************************************************

Source: Asia Sentinel (6/17/14):
http://www.asiasentinel.com/politics/south-china-morning-post-china-coverag
e/

South China Morning Post Turns to the Mainland
Written by Our Correspondent

Beijing mouthpieces given more space and prominence

Hong Kong’s 110-year-old flagship English language paper, the South China
Morning Post, is suffering another round of self-inflicted crisis.
Editorial staffers despair of its confused policy direction on local and
China news coverage. Disenchanted journalists are leaving or being let go.
It is losing its cachet as a beacon of independent journalism.

The paper historically has been important well beyond Hong Kong. With its
network of correspondents, it has been regarded as an indispensable source
of information on China by governments, analysts and businessmen across
the region if not across the world. With Chinese President Xi Jinping
putting an ever-tighter leash on mainland reporting, the Post’s
diminishing critical reporting is a slowly closing window on mainland
affairs.

Today the newsroom is demoralized and angry at what reporters regard as
unwarranted manipulation of copy beyond normal sub-editing for style, flow
and length. In some cases critical paragraphs were grafted on under
reporters’ bylines rather mysteriously.

Staffers who spoke to Asia Sentinel did so on anonymity as they feared
being fired if instances cited were too specific. Hong Kong political
content and China news seem to suffer the heaviest ghosting.

The paper continues to win prestigious industry awards for its content. On
June 11 it scooped four awards for journalistic excellence at the Society
of Publishers in Asia annual banquet. However, it has switched with a
surprising urgency to featuring prominent pro-Beijing personalities on its
front pages in the guise of “interviews” to issue dire warnings on Occupy
Central and the futility of political reform beyond what Beijing will
allow.

Valuable front page space has become in-your-face propaganda which does
little for the paper’s credibility or the professional reputations of its
editors and journalists. Editorial columns once respected for clarity and
firm policy positions now hem and haw between criticism and justifications
for controversial local and national government policy. It can’t be fun
for the leader writers forced to vacillate.

CY Leung placemen on chessboard


Deputy editor Tammy Tam manages to spin CY Leung’s dismally poor record on
senior appointments in government and statutory bodies, as a determined
chief executive putting trusted placemen into key roles for effective
implementation and smooth relations with Beijing.

“Appointments may fly in the face of meritocracy but the city’s leader
needs people who can help him” is how this hollow public relations piece
masquerades as news in the City section of its June 16th edition.

‘Eyeball catcher’ as China editor

New China editor Billy Tianbo Huang lists Xinhua News Agency and Mediacorp
in Singapore as references on his Linkedin profile. On his role for the
state-owned Mediacorp, Billy says of himself: “under his leadership the
company cracked highly-regulated China market and captured more eyeballs
than before.”

Singapore press experience is highly valued by media owners in Hong Kong
keen to have editors who know their place in politics and who enjoy the
patronage of China’s propaganda czars. Beijing bureau chief Zhang Hong
jumped off as Billy Huang arrived to take the helm of China news.

Apple Daily reported at end May that one Billy Tianbo Huang, head of One
TV, a satellite operation commencing operations on May 6th had been
arrested by HK Immigration authorities on suspicion of working illegally
without a work-permit.

How the arrested Huang resurfaced as SCMP’s China desk boss is another
gravity-defying feat of Chosen Ones from Beijing in the new Hong Kong. A
grateful Billy’s first editorial for SCMP’s Chinese website, contains this
sycophancy: “the advantage of China’s political system and courage of
China’s leaders are obvious.”

Lawmaker’s aide to cover public policy

The long-suffering city desk is restructured again with former Hong Kong
Standard reporter Cannix Yau to lead public policy and social issues. Yau
returns to newspapering after years as a political aide to lawmakers in
the CY Leung administration.

Perhaps the looming 2017 chief executive election by universal suffrage is
causing China Liaison Office minders to redouble efforts to align local
media to prop up the shambolic CY Leung administration and to amplify
warnings from Beijing on the Occupy Central movement.

The CPC was never obliged to hold any election by universal suffrage since
seizing power in 1949. In village and county elections all candidates are
prior approved. The Party’s nervousness about free elections is
understandable. It needs a rubber-stamp Nomination Committee to pre-screen
candidates.

The people of Hong Kong remember the comic cover-ups of illegal structures
by anointed CE candidate Henry Tang in 2012 and the subsequent undeclared
structures at his accuser CY Leung’s abode. There is no guarantee that the
next lot of party-approved nominees for 2017 would be any better.
Competent Hong Kong-ers stay far away from this circus.

Occupy Central a soft target

The Occupy Central organizers challenge what they see as a distortion of
universal suffrage. They demand a normal process for Hong Kong citizens to
choose their leader as promised in the Basic Law.

Occupy Central seems to have been picked as the soft target to make an
example of, instead of the deeply emotional June 4th commemoration of the
Tiananmen massacre or the annual expression of disappointment on the July
1st handover which promised “One country, two systems” and “Hong Kong
people ruling Hong Kong.”

A recent White Paper released by Beijing to correct “lop-sided, confused
and wrong views” reasserts the party’s supreme authority and its right to
keep interpreting the Basic Law to fit its concept of political reform for
Hong Kong.

The SCMP is doing its bit to promote the Beijing diktat in Hong Kong.
Perhaps the owners still hope to be rewarded with publishing access into
the mainland for its languishing share price.