THE PRESS
Despite three changes of editorship in little over 12 months, the Hong Kong (Tiger) Standard, founded in 1949 by Mr. Au Boon Haw, who owns a group of English and Chinese newspapers throughout South- East Asia, continues to make good progress and remains the sole rival to the South China Morning Post group.
The trade journal Daily Commodity Quotations published on weekdays, in English and Chinese, serves the useful function of giving up-to-date trade news.
The Chinese newspaper world showed fewer changes than usual during the year. The enactment of the Control of Publications Ordinance, 1951, may be to some degree responsible for this greater steadi- ness, since under the provisions of this Ordinance it is necessary for all newspapers and publications to register and to put up a deposit of $10,000, or name two sureties for that amount, who are acceptable to the Registrar of Publications. These regulations have undoubtedly discouraged a number of the highly speculative and ill-financed publishing ventures whose short-lived existences made the "Mosquito Press" an unhappy characteristic of Chinese journalism.
The Wah Kiu Yat Pao remains the acknowledged leader of the Colony's Chinese press. It has a large morning circulation and also publishes an evening edition; its aim is to report news independently and it is a generally reliable newspaper. Right wing papers giving reliable news include the Sing Tao Jih Pao, run by the proprietors of the Hong Kong Standard, and the Kung Sheung Daily News, both of which publish evening editions. The Sing Pao, with a circu- lation rivalling, if not exceeding, that of the Wah Kiu Yat Po, has little political significance and is largely a gossip paper.
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