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Hong Kong’s FactWire, an impartial investigative information company, has turn into the fourth main information outlet within the territory to shut inside lower than a yr. FactWire succumbed to what it described because the “nice change” in Hong Kong’s media setting for the reason that imposition of the Nationwide Safety Legislation, which has considerably dismantled the town’s impartial media and civil society. With a shrinking area for journalism in each Hong Kong and mainland China, officers are celebrating a brand new period of “patriotic media” more and more below authorities management. Bidding its readers farewell, FactWire launched an announcement saying the termination of its operations:
For the previous six years, we’ve got completed our greatest to maintain this publicly-funded investigative information company afloat in Hong Kong, while adhering to the best requirements of journalistic integrity. By means of the ups and downs, we’ve got at all times stored our mission – and our rules – close to and pricey to our hearts.
[…] In recent times, the media has contended with nice change. Regardless of having wrestled many instances with the troublesome determination as as to whether to proceed our journalistic work, we had at all times come to the identical affirmative conclusion: to face quick to our core values and beliefs, and to at all times report the info.
However to each factor there’s a season, and a time to each function. It has, finally, come time to finish our journey. [Source]
To each factor there’s a season, and a time to each function. It has, finally, come time to finish our journey.
FactWire will stop operation as of right this moment, Friday, June 10, 2022. Thanks to your assist.
Full assertion: https://t.co/ocYWnTZwOa pic.twitter.com/sp8C2kVYT6
— FactWire 傳真社 (@factwirenews) June 10, 2022
FactWire was established in 2015 as a non-profit, public service information company financed totally by public subscriptions and media licensing from readers. At its inception, it raised HK$4.7 million ($600,000 U.S. {dollars}) in crowdfunding from over 3,300 backers. Identified for its hard-hitting investigations, FactWire labeled itself because the “first and solely impartial newsroom that specialises in investigative journalism in Hong Kong.” Its founder, veteran journalist Ng Hiu-tung, summarized the company’s ethos in a BBC profile from 2017: “You possibly can’t cover the reality, even when it hurts.”
Tributes to FactWire had been shared on Twitter following the information of its closure:
Truth Wire’s investigative journalism has been strong & they gonna be missed.
One instance… discovering video of Police not stopping & checking “potential” perpetrators of seven.21 in any respect and simply letting them depart the world. https://t.co/Z34Zs30K6K— Xun-ling Au 歐迅灵 🏴 (@XunlingAu) June 10, 2022
I bear in mind my highschool civics trainer bolded and underlined FactWire on our notes as a result of it was a landmark second for Hong Kong to lastly have a crowdfunded nonprofit, bilingual investigative information company. It was eye-opening.
I suppose my trainer has to replace her notes now. https://t.co/MBsAQs7l9Y
— Alex Ip 葉清霖 (@AlexIp718) June 10, 2022
FactWire has completed some superb investigative journalism through the years, at all times reporting what HongKongers are involved about, even very lately:https://t.co/OApRKW5f8l
— Battle For Freedom. Stand With Hong Kong. 重光團隊 (@Stand_with_HK) June 10, 2022
As FactWire closes, another retailers are hoping to fill the hole, however Hong Kong’s inhospitable media panorama makes their survival unsure:
In case you are a present FactWire subscriber on the lookout for one other research-centered staff to assist. I extremely advocate @LiberResearch, which focuses on land, improvement, and environmental insurance policies. Their deep dive experiences are largely in Chinese language, however their knowledge is a treasure trove. pic.twitter.com/OsvQAXPZyS
— Okay Tse (@ktse852) June 10, 2022
And on the identical day, a brand new outlet emerges. Wave, a zine shaped by two veteran tradition reporters, will specialize in #HongKong popular culture. pic.twitter.com/KObYMKw37q
— Rachel Cheung (@rachel_cheung1) June 10, 2022
The precise cause for FactWire’s shuttering is unclear, however many observers noted the political context. In mid-April, the company launched an investigation into incoming Chief Government John Lee’s enterprise connections with members of the Chief Government Election Committee. Then, on Could 3, FactWire revealed an investigation revealing that the federal government’s LeaveHomeSafe COVID-19 app had a beforehand undisclosed facial-recognition function. The subsequent day, FactWire reported that it had suffered a cyberattack, originating from a Hong-Kong-based IP handle and involving unauthorized entry to info on 3,700 of the company’s subscribers. Hillary Leung from the Hong Kong Free Press recounted a few of FactWire’s different main investigations and awards:
Earlier this yr, a FactWire investigation discovered that there have been a variety of CCTV cameras within the neighborhood of a Wan Chai restaurant the place high political officers held a celebration that violated Covid-19 guidelines.
It has additionally damaged tales about security issues at a mainland Chinese language nuclear energy plant and the persecution of late Nobel prize winner Liu Xiaobo, in keeping with its web site.
Their work obtained a variety of awards. Its reporting on the clashes between police and protesters at Prince Edward MTR station on August 31, 2019, through the anti-extradition unrest that summer season, gained accolades from the Human Rights Press Awards and the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) in 2020.
Its report on faux information through the 2019 protests was additionally a finalist for the SOPA’s public service journalism class within the following yr. [Source]
Extra broadly, FactWire has disbanded amid a years-long authorities crackdown on the town’s media, abetted by harsh software of the Nationwide Safety Legislation, that exhibits no indicators of abating. In Reporters With out Borders’ annual Press Freedom Index, launched final month, Hong Kong dropped from eightieth to 148th place amongst 180 international locations, the steepest decline within the index’s historical past. FactWire joins three different Hong Kong-based information retailers which have closed throughout the previous yr: Apple Day by day, Stand Information, and Citizen Information. In an interview with CNBC on the day FactWire closed, Carrie Lam nonetheless argued that “Hong Kong is as free as ever, whether or not it’s within the freedom of expression, within the freedom of meeting, within the media, and so forth.” Reporting on the town’s media local weather after FactWire’s closure, Tommy Walker at Voice of America described how journalists in Hong Kong have gotten an “endangered species”:
“The working setting in Hong Kong is getting extra anxious due to the purple strains and the exterior stress placed on journalists, who usually turn into targets of propaganda,” [an anonymous Hong-Kong-based journalist] advised VOA.
[…] “Now I feel I’m working nearly in the identical means as international journalists working within the mainland (China). It’s not that points are legally delicate, however they’re politically delicate, and you must take into account the political setting when reporting,” [another anonymous Hong-Kong-based journalist] advised VOA. “I feel there may be undoubtedly a tradition of worry within the metropolis, psychologically and generally editorially that impacts us as journalists.”
[…] “A number of years in the past, it was completely effective to be a journalist in Hong Kong,” Tsui stated. However right this moment, journalists are like “the animals you must defend when they’ll go extinct. They’re [the] endangered species in Hong Kong,” [said Lokman Tsui, a former media professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong]. [Source]
On Monday, Hong Kong officers hosted a celebration for the a hundred and twentieth anniversary of the pro-Beijing Ta Kung Pao newspaper. In a letter to the newspaper learn aloud on the ceremony, President Xi Jinping praised Ta Kung Pao for “repeatedly demonstrating constructive voices and fostering society’s cohesiveness […,] safeguarding Hong Kong’s stability, selling exchanges between Hong Kong and the mainland, in addition to fostering the reunification of individuals’s hearts with the nation.” Ng Kang-chung from the South China Morning Publish reported on how different high-profile attendees interpreted the position of Hong Kong media in society:
“These are additionally Xi’s encouragement for all media that love the nation and love Hong Kong,” stated [Luo Huining, director of Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong]. “In a pluralistic society like Hong Kong, we particularly want media that love the nation and love Hong Kong to uphold the reality and to beat the evil and hail the virtuous. And we want media staff who love the nation and love Hong Kong to carry tight to their mission and shoulder their duties.”
Additionally talking on the ceremony, Chief Government-elect John Lee Ka-chiu famous press freedom in Hong Kong was protected by the Primary Legislation and loved the identical safeguards as elsewhere on this planet.
“As long as it doesn’t break the regulation, there isn’t any restrict to the room for press freedom. This customary is according to the superior jurisdictions on this planet, together with the West,” Lee stated. “Journalistic work ought to purpose to realize professionalism and excellence. It’s not just for its credibility, but in addition it’s to imagine its accountability and meet media ethics.”
[…] “Along with persevering with to make good use of press freedom to watch the federal government, the media must also safeguard nationwide safety and observe the regulation, and take initiative to advertise nationwide safety, to supply the overall readers and viewers with the right, complete and goal info,” [Chief Executive Carrie] Lam stated. [Source]
The shrinking area for impartial, non-state-controlled journalism has been documented on the Chinese language mainland, as properly. As David Bandurski reported on Tuesday for China Media Venture, a current state media report from the All-China Journalism Affiliation (ACJA) described the steep drop in licensed Chinese language journalists and rising “convergence” of reports below authorities authority:
Within the eight years from 2014 to 2021, the full variety of media personnel with legitimate press playing cards (记者证) fell from 258,000 to 194,000, a decline of slightly below 25 %. This interprets to a complete lack of 64,000 journalists throughout the nation throughout that interval.
[…] One other clear pattern on this yr’s ACJA report, glossed over in official protection of the numbers, is that licensed journalists below the age of 30 in China right this moment quantity simply 14,000 nationwide. That is down from 40,000 eight years in the past, which implies that one-third as many younger journalists are licensed right this moment than had been lower than a decade in the past.
[…] One other possible cause is the very “convergence” pattern cited extra prominently in official protection of the ACJA report final month. Below the centralized mannequin superior by the management, multimedia content material is more and more created not by native and regional information retailers, however slightly by “media convergence facilities” (融媒体中心) that bundle materials for a number of platforms. The results of this pattern is prone to be rising centralization of the discharge of reports throughout the nation, with party-state managed facilities producing a better proportion of content material. And centralization means much less demand for the press playing cards required for journalists to have interaction in information gathering. [Source]
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