- 10.
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5
Now my question to you is: in this age of image glut are we able to say that for somebody that is shouting, "give me liberty or give me CNN", is that the right time to do so?
Governor: I agree with you that no freedom is absolute, that we exercise in a plural society freedom within a rule of law. And if you think about freedom of speech, that is not absolute because you can't libel the next door neighbour without running the risk of being taken to court and you can't show or write obscene or pornographic material for children because that would be wrong, so there are limits within which freedom of speech is exercised. But on the other hand you have to be very careful that those limits do not erode the basic principle of freedom of speech because freedom of speech is one of the most important things in any open society.
I think freedom of speech is one of the reasons why Hong Kong is so successful. When people say to me all that people are interested in Hong Kong is money, I say to them well, why does Hong Kong have the most newspapers per head in the world? It has newspapers because people are interested in public affairs, because they want to participate in public affairs, because they want to hear about public affairs. So I think freedom of speech is important.
I agree with you that sometimes freedom of speech these days, because of the globalisation of communications, because of television, because of competition in the media, that freedom of speech can become intrusive; that we have images built up one day, smashed to bits the next. But these are things which require a sensible dialogue between public officials and the media, not the attempt by public officials to stop the media from exercising their own freedoms in as responsible a way as possible.
Question: Mr Governor, indeed you are a man of the four seasons, so therefore all I can say is that beware of the Ides of the Augustine.
Governor: Right, I will certainly be aware of that.
Governor: We have got past March anyway, so that ides can be forgotten about for the time being.
Question (in Chinese): Mr Governor, you talked about the media. Recently, some people passed out on the credibility of the media saying that they are not representing the truth. As far as you are concerned what areas are the ones that you think need improvement on?