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When Glenn Schloss wrote an article on that subject in the South China Morning Post, it soon became the controversial topic around the Main Bar. Was
it true? hen the South China Morning Post ran my feature article in June about the
departure of a large chunk of the foreign media corps, the grumblings around the Main Bar were a little more acidic than usual. 'Ihe SCMP might be the leading EnglishJanguage newspaper in East Asia, but a favourite pastime of the FCC barstool critics is taking potshots at it and my article gave them something more to gripe about. For a long time those who stick the boot into the paper (yet turn to it lhe morning after for story leads and material they can lift for their employers overseas) have complained it is not tough enough on the Hong
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a sub-editor splendidly headlined "Flight of the press pack". The piece addressed not only the thinning-out of the ranks of the foreign correspondents' corps since
the July 1997 handover and the phenomenon of fly-in/fly-outjournalists, but also examined the evolving and increasingly-subtle (for "subtle" read boring if you are a foreign editor) news story which is Hong Kong. The story was prompted by the BBC's withdrawal of its regional team to the less-expensive, but more sterile location of Singapore, leaving just one correspondent in the HKSAR, and my observations over the past three years of bureau posts for important British newspapers and American TV networks being left empty. According to figures from the Hong Kong government, 134 foreign media personnel were registered in the middle of the year, down from 773 at the time of the handover, but around the same level as 1995. The FCC says its number of correspondent members remains static at about 210. That might be the case, but any member, including former President Philip Segal, knows that it is becoming harder and 14
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Editor's note: Schloss would, like it to be hnown that for the three years he has been the FCC, he has onþ once þicked uþ a story øt the Main Bar and has neaer been ffired a job thøre, but has suffered many hangouørs.
a member of
The BBC's. Departtrre for Singapor'e T A. Then I started to see press reaction here to the news that the ìltl'BBCwas going to move its SoutheastAsia team to Singapore, V V' I was not surprised because I do know this territory...and I
Kong Government and China. For the record, I disagree. I have worked at the SCMP for five years, occasionally stumbling across a story with the potential to ruffle some feathers on Lower Albert Road or in the Xinhua's office in Huppy Valley, and never once had a story about the mainland or HKSAR buried, spiked or toned down. For all of that, none of my stories have created as much as discussion within the Club as the article which
number of containers passing through the port. But it is hardly heartening for those interested in the political pulse of Hong Kong and its role as a window on China. It's the sort of thing Tung Chee-hwa with his emphasis on "business not politics" likes to see. The emails started coming in. Some diplomats who monitor media developments found the article helpful. They also bemoaned the fact that their diplomatic headquarters had taken the same attitude as foreign media organisations which tuned out on Hong Kong three years ago once it became what is derisively termed 'Just another Chinese city". And there were some polite complaints too. Agence France Presse's regional director for the Asia-Pacific Pierre Lesourd said his organisation was now one of the biggest in town with about 75 staff,35 of whom were full-time correspondents. But Mr Lesourd was not going to press the point. "AFP has decided to keep its regional at least for the time being headquarters (Asia -and Pacihc) in Hong Kong," he said. Perhaps he was thinking of Reuters' 1995 decision to relocate its Asian editorial headquarters from Hong Kong to Singapore. Or his company's financial wire service AFX's ill-fated move to Manila, which was plagued by problems including brownouts and telecommunications hitches. In the meantime, at least CNN has expanded its presence in Hong Kong, doubling its staff to 50 in the past 18 months. I
harder to find a Correspondent Member on the premises these days... bul so much easier to meet a lawyer, accountant or public relations executive.
he response to my story was mixed. It's just
not on to have a go atyour own, said one or two journos. Some freelancers with strings to major newspapers who have been fighting a losing battle just to get small pieces into their publications forget about getting their status upgraded to full-time correspondent said it was about time such a piece was writt-en. Government offrcials complained it was too hard on Hong Kong. They did their best to downplay the exodus, but had to admit there was a downturn, blaming it on the smooth transition. You won't frnd those spin doctors complaining about the lack of international interest in the right of abode controversy or the Robert Chung polling affair, incidents which did not portray the HKSAR government in the best light. I was buttonholed in the Main Bar by fìnancial scribes who disagreed, saying their agencies were getting bigger. That's great, but so what? That might reflect the growing emphasis on Hong Kong as a business and fìnancial centre, which is all well and good for those interested in the minutiae of. stock prices, currency movements, loan deals and the THE CORRESPONDENT OCTOBER-NOVEMBER
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know how obsessive it is about its position. So I thought it was really very funny to think that the BBC might ever consider leaving Hong Kong behind, might consider walking away from it as though it didn't count in the world, as though it wasn't important
any longer...as though it was just another region of China and as important as any other region, but no more important than any other. I laughed, I am afraid, when I heard about that, because it is so far from the truth. It is actually.just silly. \Arhat we have done is to move one of our best young correspondents...to.. Hong Kong. We have made sure that he will have precisely the kind of backup in technical and management terms that every BBC correspondent based in Hong Kong from Tony Lawrence's time has always had. The only thing that has changed is that the correspondent in the region is simply not going to simply hang his hat up on a hook in Hong Kong, he is going to hang his the sole difference. hat up on a hook in Singapore I asked, the last time when I-was here, how often (the BBC) reports on events in Hong Kong. (It) doesn't report on ... (them) with great frequency. \4try? Because big news stories doesn't happen all that often in Hong Kong. In that same wa¡ I cannot possibly conceive of cutting our ties with (the HKSAR). I remember reading a headline in one newspaper: "The British are leaving again, the British are leaving again." Of course, that's absolute trash. I tell you, I promise you, the BBC's concerns with this territory are as strong as they always were. This is a region in which we have the most profound interest and it continues with as much strength now and into the future, as long as I am in the job, as it ever had when Tony Lawrence was the BBC correspondent here decades back. John Simpson, Simþson's World, BBC
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