Covering the 2019 Hong Kong Protests

For months in 2019, journalists in Hong Kong covering the Anti-Extradition Bill Movement were subjected to political pressure, violent attacks, criticism, and, on occasion, were praised for their bravery. On the ground, as the violence between protesters and police escalated, and as the latter adopted increasingly aggressive tactics, including targeting frontline journalists, the risks associated with covering street protests increased as well. At the same time, the political stances of the media outlets that employed journalists and the usually limited support that they received sometimes made it challenging for them to report the facts.

I interviewed Wendy, a journalist for a mainstream HK newspaper, in December 2020. During the interview, which was conducted in Cantonese in my office, she recalled an editorial that her organization had published on June 13, 2019, that described the demonstration on the previous day as a riot, strongly condemned violent attacks, and accused those who questioned the use of force by police of selectively viewing the video footage and being biased toward the protesters. The editorial drew criticism for its focus on the protesters’ activities and its failure to mention that the police had beaten unarmed protesters, shot some with projectiles, and sprayed others with tear gas at close range. Several reporters and editors in Wendy’s organization had posted signs in the newsroom protesting the editorial, and other staff members had left messages on the signs expressing their concern that it would damage the newspaper’s credibility. A group of journalists and editors later issued an open letter saying that the editorial had brought shame on the staff and revealed that frontline reporters had in some cases been unable to conduct interviews as a result.

The Chinese government began disseminating propaganda targeting journalists covering the protests in Hong Kong from the beginning of the Anti-Extradition Bill Movement in 2019. Thus, on the one hand, state media outlets criticized the frontline reporters for unprofessional conduct, alleging that they pointed their cameras only at the police while overlooking protesters’ violent acts. On the other hand, they accused these reporters of using false professional identities to impede the efforts of police to enforce the city’s laws (Wang & Li, 2019). The Hong Kong police, for their part, claimed to have identified three types of fake reporters: those with forged press cards, of which at least two cases were reported; those wearing the yellow reflective vests that normally identified members of the press but without the insignia of a media organization and who disappeared when police officers approached; and those who represented organizations that were unknown to the authorities. Although the law gives members of the public the right to take photographs in public places, the police asserted that the fake reporters made it impossible for them to identify real journalists (“Fake reporters,” 2019).

City Broadcasting Channel (CBC) has been one of the independent campus channels that broadcast from Hong Kong universities. As a central unit of the Student Union of City University of Hong Kong, CBC has been managed by an elected team of students. CBC’s Facebook page states that it, “as a multimedia channel, endeavors to deliver both on- and off-union information to students, ensuring their right of acknowledgment. This [channel] thus enables students to monitor CityU and union affairs as well as things happening in society.”

When the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was founded in 1949, the Communist Party’s press policy banned private newspapers. Therefore, two influential newspapers in mainland cities, Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po, relocated to Hong Kong. There, they became the external propaganda mouthpieces of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under the control of the party’s Hong Kong and Macau Working Committee and publishers dispatched from Beijing (He, 2020). In 2016, the two newspapers merged to form the Hong Kong Dagong Wenhui Media Group under the direct control of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, which is an organ of the State Council of the PRC in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). After Hong Kong’s return to China in 1997, the control of the media by the central and local governments increased. The Shenzhen Press Group brought the Hong Kong Commercial Daily in 1999. Even earlier, in 1996, Phoenix Satellite Television was founded in Hong Kong by Liu Changle, a former People’s Liberation Army officer who was suspected of maintaining extensive links to the Chinese military (Ma, 2007).

The months-long Anti-ELAB Movement was widely covered by media outlets from many countries. Indeed, among the protests staged around the world in 2019, those in Hong Kong received the most international attention, in no small part because the city has been the Asian hub of the global media industry (Chen, 2015). After the handover in 1997, Hong Kong guaranteed press freedom under the “one country, two systems” framework and thus became the preferred location for many foreign media outlets to cover China and Asia. In addition to The New York Times, major international media outlets such as Agence France-Presse (AFP), CNN, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and the Financial Times have located their Asia-Pacific headquarters in Hong Kong. AFP, for example, has the news stories produced by its 26 bureaus in the Asia-Pacific region sent to Hong Kong, where they are edited and then distributed to clients worldwide.

Online media have been an essential source of information in the anti-ELAB movement. In fact, from television to newspapers, traditional media are no longer the first choice of consumers of news in Hong Kong (CUHK, 2020). Among online media outlets, Stand News stands out because of its live broadcasting and the respect that audiences have for its journalists—as well as its unambiguous stance as an advocacy media outlet that does not shy away from mobilizing participation in social causes. For this reason, Stand News merits investigation as a case study of the role of journalists in the anti-ELAB movement.

In June 2019, journalists wearing reflective clothing and protective gear shuttled between protesters and police to document the longest-running and most violent social movement in the city since its handover in 1997. The journalists were subjected to political pressure, violent attacks, and criticism and also, at times, received praise. On the ground, as violence escalated between protesters and police and the latter employed increasingly heavy-handed tactics in their dealings with frontline journalists, reporting became an ever more dangerous undertaking. Simultaneously, the political stance of the media outlets and constraints on reporting resources further complicated journalists’ efforts to document the facts on the ground. An accurate and comprehensive record of a social movement is necessary if the public is to make well-informed judgments and choices about it. As guardians of the truth, journalists seek to perform their duties without interference from either police or protesters.