Dividing the City

Can we still trust this man?

Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying has begun to decisively divide the city, following a teacher's outburst last month.

Yesterday at a town hall meeting in Tin Shui Wai, Leung had ordered the education chief to submit a report on the incident involving Alpais Lam Wai-sze, who swore at police on July 14. She openly criticized how the police were handling an incident involving the Youth Care Association who protested against the Falun Gong.

Depending on which clips you see on YouTube, Lam's outburst may seem outrageous, while others give the impression she is trying to defend free speech in Hong Kong, in that the Falun Gong should also be allowed to display their placards as much as the Youth Care Association (who were trying to cover up the Falun Gong's).

Lam is a model teacher, having taught for 18 years and even received the Chief Executive's Award for Teaching Excellence for 2010/2011.

After people heard about the incident, they went out into the streets either for Lam or against her in Mong Kok on August 4. Lam has already apologized twice for the incident in the hopes that it would fade, but others refuse to let it go. There have been protests at the school and calls for Lam to resign.

Leung's order to the education chief for the report on Lam, and openly supporting the police shows the chief executive has already decided his judgment on the matter -- you are either with us or against us.

Sound familiar?

Why order a report on Lam's incident when he has already declared he has supported the police in their actions? And why wade into it so late -- it seems like he wants to stir the pot further.

Lam's father, Lam Sum-shing said he was very disappointed at Leung's response to the incident.

"There are a lot of important issues in Hong Kong waiting for him to deal with, but he still wouldn't let go of such a minor thing," he said. "It will tear society even further apart."

Indeed we are already seeing scuffles every time Leung shows up somewhere and there are pro Leung supporters and anti-Leung protesters at each event. No wonder it makes it harder for the police to do their job. They're getting tired of physically dealing with unruly citizens.

Leung has also hit back at critics who reported Executive Council members Franklin Lam Fan-keung and Barry Cheung Chun-yuen to the Independent Commission Against Corruption over possible conflicts of interest.

Lam was accused of profiting from selling two flats just before the introduction of a new stamp duty and the Department of Justice said it had insufficient evidence to prosecute him. Instead of staying on, Lam resigned hours after the statement.

Meanwhile the ICAC said it would not follow up on Cheung's case without further evidence. Cheung quit all public posts in May when his failed venture, the Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange was under criminal investigation.

So Leung is now demanding those who accused these two men of wrong doing to apologize to them.

"After the ICAC cleared Lam, not one person -- including those who reported him or the political parties who stirred up the incident -- said sorry to Lam, publicly or privately. The people who reported Cheung too, did not apologize to him."

Democratic Party chief executive Lam Cheuk-ting, a former graft investigator, said Leung's demand for an apology was an "outrageous joke". He said Leung should not discourage people from going to the ICAC if they suspect any kind of corruption.

We get the feeling Leung is a not happy with some of his people being forced out, but that's politics. And besides, these people were not cleared -- there just wasn't enough evidence or information yet to prosecute them.

Leung has to be careful in how he plays his cards. He's already creating a divisive atmosphere in the city when he really should take leadership in being the catalyst in bringing everyone together.

Looks like things are going to become worse before they get better...

Changing Media Landscape

Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales is proposing to fix journalism... all ideas welcome

The Wikimania conference wrapped up in Hong Kong today, with over 500 people from 90 countries attending.

Co-founder Jimmy Wales addressed the crowd and proposed an interesting question -- journalism is broken. How can we fix it?

"This is one of the greatest journalistic opportunities of the century. That we live in an era where possibility to expose wrongdoing is great... these are serious times and we deserve serious journalism," he told a packed auditorium. "The question is, is it possible to fix this, and what is our role in all of this?"

He was wondering aloud about a publicly funded journalistic enterprise, what it would look like and how it would function. He imagined professional journalists and the community being on equal footing -- or even where the community was the boss.

"Wikipedia is good at this sort of thing," he said. "We tend to avoid the tabloid nonsense and get to the important facts. If you go and you read the Wikipedia entry on Edward Snowden... Our main headline is not, Edward Snowden, who's he dating now?"

During his speech Wales presented several news clippings that showed the gossipy, sensationalist side of the story. He hopes instead that through some kind of partnership, there would be more stories of substance and quality rather than many of the shallow articles we're seeing now.

"The solution for journalism isn't going to be a purely volunteer effort, in the way Wikipedia is," Wales said. "A lot of journalism involves getting out to interview people, to produce stories, and that's really hard to do without a salary, without support. So the right way forward is some way that's a hybrid model."

We agree that when it comes to the internet, sites like Yahoo, Google News and MSN Hotmail are putting up certain stories to get clicks for advertising dollars, and these are mostly tailored to young people, thus the strange skewing towards wanting to know the latest exploits of Kim Kardashian.

But there are others like The Economist, The Atlantic and The New Yorker that are doing alright -- and these are the ones with long-form stories with quality journalism. These readers are not interested in knowing how much weight the Duchess of Cambridge has lost since she gave birth.

We already have a sort of hybrid relationship with the community, thanks to their online comments or Facebook posts that give journalists an idea of what's happening or tips on story ideas. While Wales points out today the public has a direct line to the media, we do need to figure out how to use it more effectively.

More importantly, how are media outlets supposed to be able to financially survive in this fast-changing climate? When The Boston Globe was sold for only $70 million when The New York Times bought it in 1993 for $1.1 billion?

What are Jeff Bezos' plans for The Washington Post?

What's even more interesting is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' personal acquisition of The Washington Post for $250 million this week from the Graham family that owned it for eight decades.

While he says things aren't going to change much at first, Bezos has hinted there will be some experimentation. We are interested to see what he'll do and if it'll work. Everyone has been trying to figure out how to monetize the news and make a profit. Now it's Bezos' turn.

Does he understand the news business? Does he appreciate what it takes to make good journalism?

We shall find out soon enough.

There are many ideas on how to fix journalism out there this week. May the best man (or woman) win.

Defiance Behind Bars

Xu Zhiyong previously on the cover of Esquire

A few days ago human rights activist Xu Zhiyong was filmed behind bars in a detention centre in Beijing. It was courageous for him to do this, and we wonder if he will suffer punishment as a result of his actions.

The identity of the person who filmed the 1:19 minute clip is not known to prevent that person from getting into trouble.

Xu, 40, was arrested on July 16 for "assembling a crowd to disrupt order in a public place."

His lawyer Liu Weiguo says the charge is baseless, and are detaining him in an effort to silence him. Xu probably got into trouble this time because he was calling for people to join the New Citizens' Movement to demand that government officials publicly declare their assets.

While Chinese President Xi Jinping is calling for the end of corruption in officialdom, it doesn't seem members of the public calling for greater accountability is kosher with the central government.

And so Xu seemed determined to continue to speak out through this video, where he calls on more citizens to stand up and defend their rights in "this age of absurdity".

"No matter how this society [of ours] is, how defeated or how absurd, this society needs brave citizens who can stand up and hold fast to their beliefs, who can take their rights and responsibilities and their dreams seriously," he says into the camera. "I'm proud to put the word 'citizen' before my name, and I hope everyone does the same, putting the word 'citizen' before their name. Let us unite and work together to make our rights as citizens matter, to make our identities as citizens matter -- working together to promote democracy, rule of law, fairness and justice in our country. Surely we can build a free, public-spirited, loving and good China."

While the video was briefly online in China, it has been blocked in the country unless internet users have VPNs to "scale the Great Firewall".

Xu is not a radical person, but someone with good intentions. He first gained attention in 2003 when he was an advocate for the family of Sun Zhigang. Sun was a young man who was beaten to death in a detention centre for vagrants and rural migrants without the proper official documents.

His work on the case shone a spotlight on these people being thrown into these arbitrary detention centres and in the end the government abolished them.

However this time it looks like Xu may have gone too far in provoking the government. His supporters will work hard to get him released, because China needs more people like him to keep reforming for the better.

Picture of the Day: Potty Training

Check out the built-in kiddie toilet seat!

We mentioned the other day about a little girl urinating in the MTR, which makes you wonder if people are ever going to change their habits, particularly when they are in a different city.

The problem is that mainlanders consider Hong Kong as a part of China. It is, but it isn't. And it should be obvious to them that Hong Kong people do things a bit differently, but they think it's just like any other Chinese city...

Anyway yesterday we went into Elements in Kowloon station, which is heavily patronized by mainland shoppers and we were surprised -- nay impressed -- that the toilet seats had an extra seat for kiddies.

Pull the second seat down and it's small enough for them to sit on instead of sitting precariously on an adult seat and mothers anxiously holding onto their kids.

It's more comfortable for everyone and probably less of a mess for the cleaners.

Wonder if other Hong Kong malls are going to follow suit...