A third organization – the five-year-old Citizen News – announced last week that it would also be closing. But unlike Apple Daily and Stand News, Citizen News didn’t wait for the police to knock before closing the store.
“Unfortunately, if we can’t continue reporting as we wanted and feel safe with, then the only option is to strike.” said lead writer Chris Yeung during a press conference on Monday.
In the 18 months since Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong, the line defining what can still be published without breaking the law has become increasingly blurred. That makes it all the more difficult for journalists to know what the authorities find acceptable and can land them in jail for years.
That means Hong Kong — once home to one of Asia’s most vibrant media scenes and a place that professes freedom of speech and freedom of the press — has lost nearly all of its independent, homegrown news channels. And while the government has rejected the idea that press freedom has been undermined, the future of independent reporting looks increasingly bleak.
“The government has created this climate of self-censorship and fear because the uncertainty about what is and isn’t illegal, and the uncertainty about what is and isn’t inflammatory is so blurred at the moment,” said a former journalism professor at the Chinese University of China. Hong Kong. Lokman Tsui, who now lives in the Netherlands.
“On the one hand, it’s a story of some outlets being forced to close,” he said. “On the other hand, it’s really the story of how professional reporting in Hong Kong is now so dangerous that you might end up in jail.”
Blurred lines
Citizen News’ announcement didn’t come out of the blue.
Just a few days before, Stand News closed its doors after police raided its office and arrested seven people involved in the publication. The “fate of Stand News” led to the decision by Citizen News, according to Yeung, who is also the former chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association.
The charges against Stand News involve a “conspiracy to publish incendiary publications,” which stems from a colonial-era crime ordinance, not the National Security Act imposed in 2020. The Hong Kong police who raided the point of sale office are national security officers.
In the end, Citizen News could not be sure whether the stories it asked reporters to write violated regulations, and chose to shut down for its staff, said Daisy Li, the publication’s editor-in-chief.
For many onlookers, the outlet was yet another victim of the city’s increasingly restrictive media environment. Like Apple Daily and Stand News, Citizen News published articles critical of government policy.
According to Sarah Cook, director of research for China, Hong Kong and Taiwan at the nonprofit Freedom House, the speed at which the industry has been “stripped” over the past two years is truly dramatic.
Then, in June, hundreds of police officers raided the offices of the long-running pro-democracy outlet Apple Daily. They arrested executives, froze the assets under national security charges — and eventually pushed for publication to be discontinued.
Lam has brushed aside the concerns. This week, she dismissed allegations that the Citizen News and Stand News shutdowns were related to national security law and opposed the idea that Hong Kong’s free press was collapsing. She claimed the stores had made the decision to close on their own.
“Nothing is more important than the rule of law in Hong Kong. And journalists and media organizations like all of us must respect and comply with the law,” she said on Tuesday. “If they are afraid of not being able to comply with the law, then they have to make a decision and make the necessary decisions.”
What happens now
Despite Lam’s insistence that press freedom still exists in Hong Kong, the number of independent media outlets is rapidly declining.
While there are still major international media outlets — including DailyExpertNews and Bloomberg — operating major newsrooms in the city, few major local independent outlets remain, with experts citing the Chinese-language inmediahk.net and the Anglophone Hong Kong Free Press as examples.
There is an expectation that independent outlets will likely be targeted sooner or later, said Hong Kong political commentator Joseph Cheng, who is now based in New Zealand.
Ronson Chan, the chairman of the Hong Kong Journalist Association and former editor at Stand News until it closed, agrees.
The free press could continue on a small scale, he said, but once outlets get too much attention and resources, they’re likely to become targets.
“The media is in… severe crackdown,” Chan, whose home was raided by police, told DailyExpertNews Business. “The chilling effect will influence many decisions for the management of the other media.”
But the city’s media environment is shifting to become more mainland-like.
In the future, Hong Kong could increasingly find itself in a situation where media is treating the city from the outside — just as media does with mainland China, Freedom House’s Cook said.
And, Tsui said, the city’s internet could become more restricted, seeing authorities block access to articles it sees as controversial.
Why this is important?
Experts also point out that the loss of local, independent outlets in Hong Kong could also undermine the role of the press as a key community watchdog.
“This is consistent across countries, all cultures — when local journalism dies, corruption increases,” Tsui said.
The problem in Hong Kong, however, is that this trend of shutting down local media is accompanied by other attacks on democracy.
“The suppression of the pro-democracy movement meant there was no tolerance for an opposition, no tolerance for checks and balances,” Cheng said.
And when Stand News and Apple Daily closed, both publications also removed years of coverage from the Internet, taking with them a historical account of the city.
“It’s an obvious attempt to erase the memory of Hong Kong people,” Cheng said.
There are also reputation costs for Hong Kong, which has long positioned itself as Asia’s global city.
After the attack on Stand News, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on the authorities of China and Hong Kong to stop attacking the city’s free and independent media and uphold freedom of expression and access to information.
“By silencing independent media, [the People’s Republic of China] and local authorities undermine Hong Kong’s credibility and viability. A confident government that is not afraid of the truth embraces a free press,” he added.
Despite heavy censorship in mainland China, Hong Kong remains relatively free. This allows it to act as a sort of gateway to the country, which is why so many businesses and media hubs are located in the city
But as Hong Kong gets closer to China, that changes.
“Now even this little peephole is turning into a black box,” Tsui said. “What the world is losing is not just understanding Hong Kong, but what’s going on in China.”
