TNAG-0071-FCO40-107-Disturbances-in-Hong-Kong-propaganda-1969 — Page 92

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Sir John Johnston

We had a brief word on the telephone this afternoon about the attached copy of a letter which Sir David Trench has sent to Lord Hill, complaining in particular about a BBC 2 television programme about Hong Kong on January 9th, and more generally about the attitude of the BBC towards Hong Kong. 2. The first point I would like to make is that Sir David Trench is essentially a liberal man and a liberal Governor, and not a man to resent or be

afraid of criticism. That he should have felt he

must express himself as frankly as he has done in

this letter is an indication of the strength of his feeling about the BBC's attitude towards Hong Kong. Over the past two years in particular, while I have

been visiting Hong Kong or Sir David has been in the United Kingdom, he has frequently let off steam about the BBC in its portrayal of Hong Kong; and I think that the television programme on January 9th must have been pretty well the final straw.

3. I myself did not see this programme, but Mr. Hall did. He tells me that when he saw it he felt considerable indignation about it. In his view it gave an entirely wrong impression of Hong Kong,

put the Hong Kong Government and HMG in the worst

possible light, and in his view, had it been seen by the Communists, would unquestionably have given them much comfort and satisfaction.

4.

Prior and subsequent to Lord Shepherd's visit

to Hong Kong we have had occasion to tell the BBC

that we thought they were doing the United Kingdom a disservice in their sensational and inaccurate reporting of events in Hong Kong. In particular we criticised them for some pretty inflated (and inaccurate) accounts of what was happening on the border area; and there was one notable occasion when an incident in Kowloon in a relatively minor key which took the Police precisely 15 minutes to deal with was headlined by the BBC as "Hong Kong has another night of violence". This particular report caused a good deal of indignation in Hong Kong at the time, and I know for a fact that it led to a number of private letters from residents in the Colony to their families over here telling them to disregard BBC reports about Hong Kong.

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