LEUNG CHUN-YING, Hong Kong’s chief executive, left out a few things in his latest report to his bosses in Beijing. On July 15th he told China’s national legislature how he believes the Hong Kong public wants to choose its leader in 2017, when a popular election is to be held under conditions controlled by Beijing.
In his report, Mr Leung claimed that the “mainstream” view in Hong Kong is that the candidates should be nominated only by a select committee, which happens to be what authorities in Beijing want too, to make absolutely sure the winner is someone they like. He failed to mention that on July 1st hundreds of thousands of people had marched for broader democratic rights, or that more than 700,000 of Hong Kong’s citizens have just voted in an unofficial referendum for a more open nominating process.
Some called the report a sham, and in another era lively local media would have relished slamming it as such. But the press in Hong Kong, despite still being far freer than its counterparts on the mainland, has lost much of its punch. The Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) said in a report this month that the past year had been “the darkest for press freedom” in several decades. Under “one country, two systems”, the formula used to govern the territory after the handover, Hong Kong was assured that its press would retain its former freedoms. However, it has been tamed in more subtle ways: ownership has shifted to pro-Beijing tycoons, and advertising has been used to exert pressure—as have violence and intimidation. According to a survey by the HKJA of 663 local journalists in 2012, 79% believed that self-censorship had risen since 2005, and 36% said that they or their supervisors practised it.
Much of the coverage of Mr Leung’s report, while citing criticism from pro-democracy factions, was also scrupulously neutral in tone. On July 16th Ming Pao, usually one of the more robust Chinese-language newspapers, noted in its headline and lead paragraph of the story that Mr Leung’s report did not “directly” rule out the possibility of a broader public nomination of candidates for chief executives. This had the effect of playing down the report’s pro-Beijing thrust. The coverage could not be called biased, because it reported the reactions of all sides, but neither could it be called bold.
One exception is Apple Daily, a lively tabloid accused by critics of being a tool of radical activists. On July 16th it published a front-page condemnation of Mr Leung’s report as “fake consultation” with citizens, and relayed an exhortation that the people “not stop fighting” for real democracy.
Apple Daily does not have to worry about losing big advertisers for its strident tone. It has already lost them. Last autumn three banks—HSBC, Hang Seng and Standard Chartered—ceased advertising with the newspaper (several big property developers stopped in 2003, another tense moment in relations with Beijing). Mark Simon, an executive with Apple Daily's media group, says the banks told him that the central government’s liaison office in Hong Kong had called for this. (The liaison office has denied it and the banks have said their decisions were commercially based.)
Other media outlets in Hong Kong do hit local officials hard at times. Occasionally they rile the Chinese government too. In 2013 a cameraman from TVB, a television channel sometimes derided as “CCTVB” (after China Central Television, China’s state broadcaster) for its supine editorial line, showed unusual courage. With another cameraman, he accompanied an activist on an attempted visit to the home in Beijing of Liu Xia, the wife of an imprisoned Nobel laureate, Liu Xiaobo. The cameramen were beaten up at the scene.
Not like it used to be
But in the past two years several news organisations have experienced management shake-ups and worrying episodes of intimidation. The South China Morning Post, Hong Kong’s leading English-language newspaper, has recently installed a number of senior editors who have worked at mainland newspapers or agencies. Frustrated journalists at the paper tell of stories that are critical of China often being toned down or dropped altogether. In February Commercial Radio axed Li Wei-ling, a talk-show host who frequently takes the government to task; she accused her employer of bowing to government pressure in exchange for the renewal of its licence. In January Kevin Lau, Ming Pao’s chief editor, was removed, to the shock and anger of many of the paper’s reporters. Then, on February 26th, Mr Lau was nearly killed in a knife attack.
The motives for the attack on Mr Lau remain unclear, but its method, used by triad gangs, has become familiar to Hong Kong’s journalists. In 2013 two men with batons beat a magazine publisher. In another incident two attackers smashed the car window of the publisher of a free newspaper. He sped to safety but says he has since lost advertisers. In June 2013 a stolen car crashed into a gate outside the home of Jimmy Lai, Apple Daily’s owner. A machete and a hatchet were left behind.
The effect longer-term of such tactics is unclear. Many residents have taken to the streets, and they may do so again. Perhaps more importantly, they have also taken to the internet, which is uncensored in Hong Kong. A younger generation, which reads fewer newspapers, uses social media to vent its frustrations and to organise collective action. Journalists have migrated online, too, setting up news websites such as the House News. The traditional press may now be docile, but that does not mean ordinary people are.
Correction: An earlier version of this article identified Mark Simon as the publisher ofApple Daily. He is actually an executive with Apple Daily's media group. This was corrected on July 17th.