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HONG KONG: The Hong Kong government’s review of the public broadcaster RTHK has found deficiencies in editorial management and a lack of transparency in handling complaints, indicating a major overhaul of the revered institution as they increase concerns about media freedom.
Radio Television Hong Kong, the only publicly funded independent media outlet on Chinese soil, was founded in 1928 and is sometimes compared to the British Broadcasting Corporation. Its statute guarantees editorial independence.
He enraged the Hong Kong government, the police and Beijing with his coverage of the 2019 anti-government protests that rocked the Asian financial center, including several investigations that drew widespread criticism of the authorities.
“There are shortcomings in (the) editorial management mechanism,” the Commerce Office said in a 154-page report of its review released Friday.
There were no “well-defined and well-documented editorial processes and decisions,” and “no clear assignment of roles and responsibilities among editorial staff,” he added. “There is a weak editorial responsibility.”
The government-led review that focuses on governance and management aspects of RTHK was announced last year, covering the topics of administration, financial control and manpower.
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However, the station’s staff union said the review “defies basic logic.”
In a statement, he added, “editorial autonomy has vanished into nothingness.”
Earlier on Friday, Hong Kong appointed Under Secretary of Home Affairs Patrick Li as broadcasting director, effective March 1.
Li, a career bureaucrat who worked in the government’s continental and constitutional affairs and security offices but has no media experience, will replace veteran journalist Leung Ka-wing six months before his contract expires.
Leung, whose management the magazine has described as too “passive”, was not thanked for his service in notifying the government of the new appointment, contrary to practice. Beijing has said that patriots must run all public institutions in Hong Kong.
The station “serves city residents rather than bureaucrats,” its staff union said.
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“It’s a full-body operation,” said Bruce Lui, former host of RTHK’s “China on the dot” radio show.
“It is foreseeable that it will be difficult to make sensitive reporting that, for example, could involve criticizing the Communist Party of China,” added Lui, who is now a journalism professor at Hong Kong Baptist University.
Beijing supporters regularly file complaints against RTHK and organize protests outside its headquarters, accusing it of anti-government bias.
Last week, RTHK said it would suspend the broadcast of BBC radio news after China excluded the BBC World News service from its networks, highlighting how the former British colony’s media is falling under the increasing dominance of Beijing. .
When Beijing expelled a dozen journalists working for US media outlets last year, it also banned them from moving to Hong Kong, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Critics see a broad national security law imposed by Beijing in June 2020 as a blunt tool to suppress dissent and curb media freedom and other freedoms. The law requires stricter regulation and supervision of the media.
The government says that rights and freedoms remain intact.
Since the law was introduced, leading pro-democracy activists and politicians have been arrested, while some songs and slogans have been banned, along with anything that could be considered political activity in schools.
Media mogul and Beijing critic Jimmy Lai, founder of the popular tabloid Apple Daily, is the highest-profile activist charged under the new law, charged with conspiring with foreign forces.
Hong Kong’s ranking fell to 80 in Reporters Without Borders’ world press freedom index in 2020, from 18 in 2002. China is ranked 177.
