tim's experiment

I have been writing opinion pieces and op eds on and off for about 50 years. One gets occasional feedback, sometimes praise, sometimes criticism. I try not to be inflated by flattery or downcast by brickbats. Still, after so long it is nice to get some original advice.

This brings me to the current trial of sundry employees, and the owner, of the Stand News web channel, on charges of sedition. Prosecuting counsel Laura Ng, while cross-examining a former editor, suggested that all commentaries should be “balanced”.

The editor’s answer to this was much more polite than mine would have been. I do not wish to imply in any way the guilt or innocence of anyone on trial in this case, which would be quite improper. No doubt the judge would not be influenced in any way by anything I wrote here anyway.

But in the interests of what is left of Hong Kong journalism we need to establish firmly that it is neither necessary nor desirable that opinion pieces should be “balanced”.

There is certainly a case for balance in news reports. This is why reporters like conflicts which have two clear sides – Labour versus Conservative, strikers versus an employer, the prosecution versus the defence. Balance is achieved by giving roughly the same amount of space and attention to each side.

In more complicated disputes the matter becomes difficult. On environmental matters, for example, there will be a variety of different views ranging from the prophets of doom to the spokesmen for complacency, with many niches and specialities in between.

There is also the question of when a view becomes so outlandish that we can effectively ignore it. Writers about the holocaust do not feel it necessary to include in every piece a paragraph acknowledging that some people deny it ever took place. Space stories do not acknowledge flat earth theories and stories about the British Royals ignore the rival claims to the throne of the descendants of James II.

Other offerings are more difficult to categorise. Are we obliged to note the objections of the small but noisy groups opposing vaccination, fluoride in water, or the results of the last presidential election?

Editorial writers are generally spared these headaches. An opinion piece is supposed to be about an opinion. The editorial – if your news outlet still has one – expresses the opinions of the editor or proprietor. News outlets aspiring to persuasion will attempt a serious tone, and as part of this may acknowledge that on a particular topic their view is not the only one.

By-lined opinion pieces – those with a named author – are free to expound a view.

That does not, of course, mean that gullible readers will necessarily be swayed by it. Let us suppose that some hypothetical columnist believes that the “so-called” Department of Justice is staffed largely by mercenary mediocrities who, having sold their souls for a well-filled iron rice bowl, have little knowledge and less care for the rights on which they are expected to trample.

Readers of this deplorable diatribe do not need a reminder that the Secretary for Justice takes a very different view of the matter. Indeed the secretary has many opportunities to make this clear even if he doesn’t (as the present one does) write op eds for sympathetic news outlets himself.

Balance is achieved overall because we report the secretary’s speeches and print his department’s press releases, on other occasions. This possibility is specifically catered for in the law on court reporting, which recognises that on any one day the proceedings will often be dominated by the prosecution or the defence. Coverage remains ‘fair’ (an important matter for defamation purposes) as long as you cover the other days as well.

Our government puts out a great deal of stuff, which the media generally gobble fairly uncritically. Critics struggle to get a word in.

This brings us to another point about “balance”, which is that it assumes that, outside the media outlet concerned, ideas are competing on a level playing field. This is not the case at all. Governments and other organisations have large operations dedicated to the manipulation of public opinion.

When I was a working reporter we all knew that some of the people engaged in this activity could not be relied on for a straight answer. We printed their lies in the interests of balance and tried to alert readers by the use of verbs like “claimed” or “asserted” where we might normally have stuck with “said”.

These PR people were often under great pressure to get the desired result. In the days when I provided short courses for government information officers I was routinely told that their immediate superiors had no interest in explaining government policy to the public; they expected their information people to stir up personal publicity for the director or secretary concerned.

In the days when hotel coffee shops kept a vat of over-brewed coffee sitting on a hot plate, a reporter (not me, thank goodness) wrote a piece about the low standard of coffee in such places and named names. The hotel identified as having Hong Kong’s most disgusting coffee took immediate action: it sacked its PR person.

Experiences of this kind engender a certain professional skepticism in journalists, a suspicion that unless otherwise stated all idols have clay feet, all emperors have no clothes, and all official statements are deceptive.

Conversely we tend to believe that the poor and oppressed, among their other disadvantages, have few opportunities for getting public exposure for their needs and views. Writing about such issues does not need to be balanced by a detailed account of the responses of the rich and powerful, who need no help.

This is the sort of thing which happens in places with a free press, and it is a concern that it not only does not happen much any more in Hong Kong, but that the forces of law and order seem to find it actually objectionable.

Reading recent court cases it appears that there is now an official view of the events of 2019, based on the observations of the NPC Standing Committee, that the protests were anti-China, pro-independence, and inspired by scurrilous foreigners taking advantage of young Hongkongers whose brains had been addled by the Liberal Studies subject.

Any alternative interpretation can accordingly be prosecuted as subversion. The extradition bill never existed and our policemen are wonderful, OK? Isn’t it wonderful to have a free press!