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CHAIRMAN:--Sir, I pushed very hard. (Laughter).
MR. CHEONG-LEEN:-Sir, I congratulate you on doing an excellent job.
DR. BELL: Mr. Chairman, in connexion with this second paragraph of your answer, you say that this was linked with the provision of the text of speeches to be made. May I inquire why these texts have to be provided first?
CHAIRMAN: The answer is quite simple. Time is needed for translations.
DR. BELL: But I don't understand that-if the text is provided at the time the speech is made, why should the broadcaster want to have the texts in advance? Are they not taking the whole speech, if they are present in the chamber?
CHAIRMAN:-No, they are not. I understand, in fact I know, it is not a question of understanding, that when Rediffusion come into this Chamber, or even when they go into Legislative Council Chamber to record proceedings there, they do not record the entire speech of any member. They have a camera which I think I am right in saying will only cope with something like three to ten minutes of a speech, and they therefore need the speech in advance in order to pick out what they think are the highlights which they wish to record. You may recall- perhaps you may not-but I recall they only turn on the cameras a certain times during the speeches, at those bits which they thought would be of particular interest to the public. So it is important, in fact it is imperative, if you wish to have Rediffusion recording debates in this chamber, it is imperative they have the speeches at least early in the morning of the day of the meeting, so that some editor can go through and mark these pieces and tell the manipulator of the camera, "this is where you start the machine".
DR. BELL:-But surely, Sir, it would be very much better if the whole thing could be recorded, and you could see from the speech the person was making, the point that whoever was making the speech was trying to get over. I mean, reading through the speech almost amounts to censoring the speech in that case. Whoever picks out a certain passage— it may not be the particular passage you wanted stressed at all. May I take an instance. There has been a great deal of publicity given to the licence plate number suggestion that I made in my speech, but there has been no publicity given to pedestrian crossings for the unfortunate pedestrians where road works are going on throughout the Colony, a point which I consider much more important, and which I stressed much louder in my speech. (Laughter).
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS:--Mr. Chairman, I suffered from the same thing. The bits I wanted the press to report from my speech, were never picked out. (Laughter).
CHAIRMAN:-May I point out they do not judge it by decibels. (Laughter). They judge it by what they think the public is going to be interested in, and somebody has to make his mind up, and they have the whip hand. They decide what they will present to the public. They know-it is their professional business, and I think we must accept that. You may disagree with what they do (Laughter). Perhaps if you sent a speech in you could mark in red pencil those bits that you think ought to be covered. (Laughter).
DR. BELL:-I was just going to suggest, that Mr. Chairman. Would it be better to edit passages of our speeches for broadcasting and handed it to them in advance.
MR. SALES: Mr. Chairman, I think at times the press should be encouraged to show this forbearance, so that the public will not be inflicted with all our speeches. For my part I am prepared to sacrifice all my television time so that the lady members across the table and my own lady member will have more time on T.V. I am sure the public would appreciate that more. Would you inform Rediffusion accordingly? (Laughter).
CHAIRMAN: You may be sure, Sir, that since I received your question I have been extremely polite to Rediffusion, and will make every effort to interest them in the proceedings of this Council.
MR. SALES: Thank you. May I put question No. 8.
(8) MR. A. de O. SALES asked the following question:-
In view of the widespread public interest in the proceedings of this Council, will Government consider the appointment
to your department of a special public relations officer as was suggested many years ago?
THE CHAIRMAN replied as follows:-
A similar question was asked in this Council in June 1963, and it was said then that it was not, at the time, Government's policy to second officers from the Information Services Department to work full-time with other Departments on publicity, and that this applied equally to any proposal to provide an officer for the work of the Urban Council. The principal reason for this was that one
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CHAIRMAN:--Sir, I pushed very hard. (Laughter).
MR. CHEONG-LEEN:-Sir, I congratulate you on doing an excellent job.
DR. BELL: Mr. Chairman, in connexion with this second paragraph of your answer, you say that this was linked with the provision of the text of speeches to be made. May I inquire why these texts have to be provided first?
CHAIRMAN: The answer is quite simple. Time is needed for translations.
DR. BELL: But I don't understand that-if the text is provided at the time the speech is made, why should the broadcaster want to have the texts in advance? Are they not taking the whole speech, if they are present in the chamber?
CHAIRMAN:-No, they are not. I understand, in fact I know, it is not a question of understanding, that when Rediffusion come into this Chamber, or even when they go into Legislative Council Chamber to record proceedings there, they do not record the entire speech of any member. They have a camera which I think I am right in saying will only cope with something like three to ten minutes of a speech, and they therefore need the speech in advance in order to pick out what they think are the highlights which they wish to record. You may recall- perhaps you may not-but I recall they only turn on the cameras a certain times during the speeches, at those bits which they thought would be of particular interest to the public. So it is important, in fact it is im- perative, if you wish to have Rediffusion recording debates in this chamber, it is imperative they have the speeches at least early in the morning of the day of the meeting, so that some editor can go through and mark these pieces and tell the manipulator of the camera, "this is where you start the machine".
DR. BELL:-But surely, Sir, it would be very much better if the whole thing could be recorded, and you could see from the speech the person was making, the point that whoever was making the speech was trying to get over. I mean, reading through the speech almost amounts to censoring the speech in that case. Whoever picks out a certain passage— it may not be the particular passage you wanted stressed at all. May I take an instance. There has been a great deal of publicity given to the licence plate number suggestion that I made in my speech, but there has been no publicity given to pedestrian crossings for the unfortunate pedestrians where road works are going on throughout the Colony, a point which I consider much more important, and which I stressed much louder in my speech. (Laughter).
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571
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS:--Mr. Chairman, I suffered from the same thing. The bits I wanted the press to report from my speech, were never picked out. (Laughter).
CHAIRMAN:-May I point out they do not judge it by decibels. (Laughter). They judge it by what they think the public is going to be interested in, and somebody has to make his mind up, and they have the whip hand. They decide what they will present to the public. They know-it is their professional business, and I think we must accept that. You may disagree with what they do (Laughter). Perhaps if you sent a speech in you could mark in red pencil those bits that you think ought to be covered. (Laughter).
DR. BELL:-I was just going to suggest, that Mr. Chairman. Would it be better to edit passages of our speeches for broadcasting and handed it to them in advance.
MR. SALES: Mr. Chairman, I think at times the press should be encouraged to show this forbearance, so that the public will not be inflicted with all our speeches. For my part I am prepared to sacrifice all my television time so that the lady members across the table and my own lady member will have more time on T.V. I am sure the public would appreciate that more. Would you inform Rediffusion accordingly? (Laughter).
CHAIRMAN: You may be sure, Sir, that since I received your ques- tion I have been extremely polite to Rediffusion, and will make every effort to interest them in the proceedings of this Council.
MR. SALES: Thank you. May I put question No. 8.
(8) MR. A. de O. SALES asked the following question:-
In view of the widespread public interest in the proceedings of this Council, will Government consider the appointment
to your department of a special public relations officer as was suggested many years ago?
THE CHAIRMAN replied as follows:-
A similar question was asked in this Council in June 1963, and it was said then that it was not, at the time, Govern- ment's policy to second officers from the Information Services Department to work full-time with other Depart- ments on publicity, and that this applied equally to any proposal to provide an officer for the work of the Urban Council. The principal reason for this was that one
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