ARTICLE 19 and The Hong Kong Journalists Association
left the profession) as a direct result of fears about future retribution over their reporting roles in 1989. This is difficult to corroborate and, in any case, numbers are likely to be small. A survey carried out in 1990 found that 30 per cent of those interviewed had tried or would try to emigrate.26 Journalists interviewed in the survey identified their most urgent needs as being higher salaries, the establishment of a press council to monitor the media, and greater investigative reporting.
The HKJA, the only industry-wide union for journalists in Hong Kong, has roughly 500 paid- up members, an estimated one-quarter to one-sixth of the territory's journalists. The HKJA focuses on a range of issues from press freedom and ethics to labour disputes and health and safety. It is, like many other unions in Hong Kong, unable to carry out collective bargaining with employers over wages or conditions, though in individual labour disputes it has had some success through arbitration and negotiation. Journalists show a general reluctance, shared throughout the community, to join trade unions, though this is slowly changing. Two other journalists unions, both in-house, are also operating - the RTHK Programme Staff Union and a union at Reuters news agency, both of which have good relations with the HKJA.
Other media organizations in Hong Kong include three proprietors' groups (the Newspaper Society of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Chinese Press Association and the Society of Hong Kong Publishers), the News Executives Association, and the Press Photographers Association. There are also several journalists' or media clubs, including the Foreign Correspondents Club, the Press Club, and an establishment recently set up by Lo Tak-shing, a publisher with close links with China.
5.5
SELF-CENSORSHIP
Self-censorship appears to have returned to the media to a worrying degree following the comparative openness or window of free expression during and briefly after the pro- democracy movement of 1989. A survey of local journalists conducted in the summer of 1990, the only such survey of its kind, revealed that around one-quarter of the 500 or so respondents were "apprehensive" when criticizing the Chinese government; slightly over one- half maintained they were not. Dr Joseph Man Chan, one of the survey compilers, suggested that while the figures were already worrying they may in fact be an under-reporting of the incidence of such "apprehension", or what otherwise might be seen as proclivity to self- censorship. Chan said that he expected the proportion of journalists exercising self-censorship to increase in the run-up to 1997.
A greater number of experienced journalists admitted that they exercised self-censorship than their junior counterparts, a phenomenon Chan conjectured may be the result of fear of
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Id. The same survey found that the "great majority of journalists shared professional values in regard to the importance of balanced reporting, upholding source confidentiality, providing news analysis and interpretation, keeping watch of the government [and] speaking for the public". Though most found it unacceptable to accept money from those they report on, only half found receiving gifts unacceptable.
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