Three blank columns and two tribute pieces published in support of Keung Kwok-yuen, Ming Pao’s recently sacked chief executive editor
PEACE.CHIU@SCMP.COM
UPDATED : Sunday, 24 April, 2016, 2:43pm
The edition of Ming Pao with blank spaces instead of opinion columns. Photo: Robert Ng
The Chinese language daily at the centre of public outrage in Hong Kong after the sacking of a former top editor, has run three blank columns and two pieces paying tribute to him in its Sunday supplement.
Keung Kwok-yuen, Ming Pao’s former chief executive editor, was abruptly fired last Wednesday to cut cost, according to the paper’s management.
Audrey Eu Yuet-mee , former lawmaker and founding leader of Civic Party, and Eva Chan Sik-chee, former Ming Pao journalist and a key campaigner against a curriculum for national education, both submitted blank columns with just headlines criticising the Ming Pao’s action to sack Keung.
Veteran media personality Ng Chi-sum also left his column empty bar one line explaining his headline, quoted from poems written by demonstrators of the 1976 Tiananmen protest, as a line frequently used by Keung: “In my grief I hear demons shriek; I weep while wolves and jackals laugh.”
The front cover of Ming Pao, featuring a piece of ginger. Photo: Robert Ng
The cover illustration of the supplement also featured a piece of ginger, which in Chinese bears phonetic resemblance to Keung’s surname.
Keung’s layoff triggered anger among staff, journalists and the public, with the paper’s union suspecting the move was meant to punish “dissidents of editorial decisions”. The controversy further deepened concerns about press freedom in the city.
In all three columns that left blank on Sunday, the supplement’s editor left a message reiterating that the paper’s decision to dismiss Keung was due to cost cutting measures and that the paper’s editorial stance remains unchanged.
The pages, where Keung’s columns once stood featured two tribute pieces.
A columnist, with a pen name spelt phonetically as “Tin Sum” who first met Keung when he was a junior journalist at Ming Pao, said his former editor was a responsible leader, and had strong logical thinking and a broad vision, like The Washington Post’s former executive editor Benjamin Bradlee and The Boston Globe’s former editor Marty Baron.
Another columnist, with a pen name roughly translated as “paper stone”, said Keung had the guts to stand up against China for basic rights in a fair society.
This is not the first time the columnists at the Chinese daily left their columns empty. In 2014, several columnists, including Chan, Ng, and Martin Lee Chu-ming, founding chairman of the Democratic Party, submitted blank columns to protest against a sudden decision to replace former chief editor Kevin Lau Chun-to with Singapore-based Malaysian Chong Tien Siong. The latter was the one who sacked Keung.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/1938021/ming-pao-runs-blank-columns-protest-sacking-chief-executive
