The Confession of an RTHK Producer-I Will Fight the Good Fight. Will you Stand With Me?"
"To listen to the powerless, to speak up for them--This is the natural duty of a documetary filmmaker." I've always believed in this.
Having worked for RTHK for more than a decade, naturally I identify with its corporate culture, and have a deep understanding of it. Certainly much deeper than the few words used in the “Report on Review of Public Service Broadcasting in Hong Kong”.
My real boss to whom I am accountable is the public.RTHK is a public asset. It belongs to the Hong Kong people. As a producer for the station, I believe I am someone who is charged with looking after this asset for the public. To quote Donald Tsang’s campaign slogan, “I will do this job well!” It can't be more obvious. My real boss, to whom I am accountable, is the public.
My primary responsibility is to add value to this public asset. However, since the handover the tendency towards “media censorship and political correctness” has increased. It’s now pretty much the air we breathe. As part of the media, RTHK has not escaped. How can we protect this asset from depreciating, and safeguard freedom of speech in order to give “the powerful, the powerless, the rich, the poor, the influential, the uninfluential” an equal opportunity to be heard? I will say, my past 10 years as an RTHK producer has been a difficult and thankless job.
Our duty to provide another perspective on what was going on in society than the one that dominates the mass media....I started working on “Hong Kong Connection” in 1993. My first story was about the campaign of immigrants from the mainland to get right of abode in Hong Kong. Since then I’ve produced six programmes on the issue, through the handover, and until the 2002 deadline for deporting those who lost their court case. People have differing views on this group of abode seekers, but what I wanted to do is to provide a channel for them to voice their opinions, to ensure that there was still room in our society for their stories to be told. It was our duty to provide another perspective on what was going on in society than the one that dominates the mass media. I remember clearly at the time that the then Secretary for Security, Regina Ip, threatened in Legco that an influx of 1.67 million mainlanders to Hong Kong would swamp us.
A Channel for the Voiceless
People have differing views on this group of abode seekers, but what I wanted to do is to provide a channel for them to voice their opinions, to ensure that there was still room in our society for their stories to be told.30th March, 2002 - the deadline for deporting the abode seekers. That day, a Hong Kong Connection programme, “A Beginning of An End” was aired. Our online forum received more than two hundred comments, 99% of which were against the abode seekers, were negative responses, or were even personal attacks on the producer. Compared to the previous two programmes, “Point of No Return” (1993) and “Family Reunion” (1996), after which we received $10,000 in donations for the cases featured, these responses were very extreme.
Years later, as expected, 1.67 million mainlanders have not come to Hong Kong to swamp us. Instead, unforeseen at the time, hundreds of thousands of mainlanders marched into Hong Kong as individual travelers, spending their money (or being cheated out of it). What hurt us most about this whole affair was the re-interpretation of the Basic Law by the National People’s Congress. It eroded Hong Kong’s legal foundation and tradition of jurisprudence. This was our argument when the programme was first produced.
Editorial Independence
Some in our management questioned whether protesters shouted “Down with Tung Chee-hwa!” too often. But how many times was too many?In July 2003, my colleagues and I produced a series of three documentaries on the proposed Legislation on Basic Law's Article 23, and the July 1st march in which half a million people took to the streets. After the programmes aired we had an internal discussion at RTHK. At four points in the programme, demonstrators shouted, “Down with Tung Chee-hwa!” In our first edit of the programme, people chanted it six times, but as the duration of the first edit was too long our executive producer suggested cutting out two of them. We, as producers, had no objection to that. After the programme aired, some in our management questioned whether protesters shouted “Down with Tung Chee-hwa!” too often. But how many times was too many?
500,000 protesters took part in the march that day. The slogan was chanted from noon until eight or nine at night. It’s a good case-study of what editorial freedom means. A reporter’s job is to reflect reality in his or her report, an executive producer’s job is to act as a gatekeeper, but the management has different pressures. RTHK is a public broadcaster, but it is also a government department. And let’s not forget, Mr. Tung was still our Chief Executive at the time.
As I see it, the problem of our management is this: as a member of a government department, when phone calls are made from on high and questions asked, can you simply answer back? Thinking back, I still believe both parties involved "did their jobs well". If - in acting as the gatekeeper - the executive producer had tried to speculate the management’s “concerns” and not made a professional editorial judgement, the decision to “soften” the reality would have been invisible to the public. RTHK is trapped between these two roles. Trying to cope, the attack rate of “schizophrenia” is exceptionally high. In the face of these strains, at the end of the day “editorial freedom” can become just an empty phrase.
It's not only a Job
Losing a job, losing money, is just another day as usual for many job seekers. But RTHK is a public asset. Once it’s gone, it’s gone for good.21st September, 2004. The last voting day of the first Legco election ever since the July 1st march. Tens of thousands are waiting for the results. I produced an episode of Hong Kong Connection on the election. My focus was on young people’s first step into politics. The programme aired at an extremely sensitive time, two hours before the election results were in. There was a little controversy. The management suggested a “cooling-off period”, i.e. delaying the programme so it didn’t run on the day of the election. My first thought was, “Okay, so my programme will be pre-empted.” Yet the journalist in me thought: “Timing is everything”. My superior and I had a heated debate, during which I stressed repeatedly that the content of the programme would be in line with election regulations and would not affect the result. In the end, the programme aired as planned. If this were just a job to me, I need not fight the way I fought. If all else failed I could have looked for another job. Outsiders might not understand and would say, “It is just a job.” Maybe. Losing a job, losing money, is just another day as usual for many job seekers. But RTHK is a public asset. Once it’s gone, it’s gone for good.
Self Censorship?
26th March, 2007. Two days after the third Chief Executive election, the documentary on the Chief Executive that I’d been filming for half a year aired. This episode of Hong Kong Connection was called, “Achieving the Impossible”. We all knew Donald Tsang would win. But there was another focus: Alan Leong and a group of election committee members believe there was a chance for a CE election with competition. My executive producer and I agreed to let the visuals speak for themselves and not use any narration in the programme. Of course, I know that no matter how “brilliantly clever” I am at writing narration, those who want to criticise you can always find a way.
Within days, the “Report on Review of Public Service Broadcasting” was released, perfectly timed to come out so soon after the Chief Executive’s election. Of course the veteran journalists on the committee knew well the journalistic theory of “Timing is everything”. A good friend and fellow journalist called me and said the report had mapped out the road to RTHK’s death. And he jokingly added, “Look what you did with your documentary two days ago.”
We are Public Broadcasting
Freeing RTHK from the government and transforming it into a statutorily-independent public broadcaster is the only way out of the current situation.If you asked me now, “Do you practice self-censorship?” I’m not quite so sure. I can't even say for sure when I placed certain contents in the programme more "wisely", to play down certain issues. I'm not proud to say this to my boss--the public. The collar around our necks tighten a little more each and every day, causing all of us to have twisted features; all of us looking sickly. But if this collar is removed, the colour will return to our cheeks. Freeing RTHK from the government and transforming it into a statutorily-independent public broadcaster is the only way out of the current situation.
The broadcasting review report focuses solely on the future, neglecting the hard realities of the present. It even sidelines our existence. It aims to “fix” RTHK, not to fix the problem. That’s the agenda because, to some, we ARE the “problem”. But the committee, at the very least, owes an explanation to the public, the true owner of this public asset: why you are destroying this asset? The fact is that the things we in RTHK do every day are the very things the future of public service broadcasting requires.
So what can I do now? Apart from saying to my boss, to you the public, “I will do this job well” I want to add, “I will fight the good fight!” We will maintain our professionalism. Will you stand with us?
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By Eric Poon, Producer of “Hong Kong Connection”
Executive Committee, RTHK Programme Staff Union
(Originally in Chinese. Translated by Diana Wan/ producer of RTHK. Amended by webmaster)
