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COMMUNICATIONS AND THE MEDIA
During the 13-day tour, the Governor met senior government officials and business leaders in these cities. Speaking to an influential forum in each of the four cities, the Governor delivered a positive message on Hong Kong's future, highlighted the trading and business potential for North America in Hong Kong, and underlined the threat posed to world trade by protectionism in the United States. While in San Francisco, he opened the Hong Kong Government's new Economic Affairs Office on Sutter Street. When in Vancouver, he attended the 'Hong Kong Day' celebration organised by the Hong Kong Pavilion at Expo '86.
The Press
Hong Kong's flourishing free press consists of 67 newspapers and 515 periodicals, which have a high readership. The registered newspapers include 45 Chinese-language dailies and five English-language dailies. A number of news agency bulletins - Chinese, English and Japanese - are also registered as newspapers.
Of the Chinese-language dailies, 36 cover mainly general news, both local and overseas, while others cover solely entertainment, especially television and cinema news, and one concentrates on finance. The larger papers include Chinese communities overseas in their distribution networks, and some have editions printed outside Hong Kong, in particular in the United States, Canada, Britain and Australia.
Hong Kong is the Southeast Asian base for many newspapers, magazines, news agencies and the electronic media. Among the international news agencies with offices in Hong Kong are Associated Press, Reuters, United Press International and Agence France Presse. Newsweek and Time magazines have editions printed in Hong Kong, which is also the base for the regional magazines Asiaweek and the Far Eastern Economic Review, as well as the Asian Wall Street Journal and the International Herald Tribune.
Several organisations represent and cater for people working in the news media in Hong Kong. The Newspaper Society of Hong Kong represents Chinese and English newspaper proprietors. It is empowered to act in matters affecting the interests of its members. The Hong Kong Journalists Association seeks to raise professional standards by recommending better training, pay and conditions in journalism, and advises its members in the event of disputes with employers. The Foreign Correspondents' Club offers its members social facilities and a range of professional activities, including news conferences, briefings and films. The Hong Kong Press Club provides an opportunity for journalists to meet socially. In the steps taken to expand and improve training in journalism, the Journalism Training Board of the Vocational Training Council plays an important role. During the year, the board published its third biennial manpower survey report on the mass media. The report revealed that the total manpower in the industry, excluding clerical, accounting, manual and printing staff, increased from 4033 in 1983 to 4 763 in 1985. The increase was particularly significant since the number of establishments in the four sectors of the industry, namely newspapers, magazines, radio-TV stations and news agencies actually declined from 357 to 312. This suggests that the mass media industry, which suffered from the recession in 1983, has strengthened. The increase was the highest in the supervisory and editorial level. One particular job, that of news editor, doubled in manpower in the newspaper sector, indicating that newspapers were keen to improve their news coverage.
With an allocation of $200,000 from the council, the board began a basic training scheme for working journalists, as a joint effort with five tertiary institutions Hong Kong University, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Polytechnic, City Polytechnic of Hong Kong and Hong Kong Baptist College. In 1986, 14 courses were conducted by the
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