Timing of Editor’s Firing Has Hong Kong Worried About Press Freedom
By MICHAEL FORSYTHE and ALAN WONG

HONG KONG — A top editor at one of Hong Kong’s most prestigious newspapers was fired on Wednesday after the publication of a front page devoted to a single story: the offshore holdings uncovered by the Panama Papers of some of the city’s tycoons, celebrities and politicians.

The Chinese-language paper, Ming Pao, said in a statement with no mention of the editor by name that it was cutting staff because of a “difficult business environment.”

But employees reacted angrily, and many in Hong Kong joined them in drawing a link between the publication of the Panama Papers story and the dismissal of Keung Kwok-yuen, the No. 2 editor in the newsroom.

Ming Pao is one of a number of newspapers around the world that have worked with the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which this month began releasing a trove of millions of documents linking some of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful people to secretive offshore companies.

The paper’s employees, represented by the Ming Pao Staff Association, confronted the chief editor, Chong Tien Siong, in a tense meeting on Wednesday afternoon, asking for a more thorough explanation of why Mr. Keung lost his job, Phyllis Tsang, the chairwoman of the association and a participant in the meeting, said by phone.

Mr. Keung’s firing also set off a round of condemnations from political leaders in Hong Kong. Many say the city’s press freedoms are being steadily eroded by what they see as the growing influence of mainland China. Hong Kong was promised a high degree of autonomy over its affairs as part of an agreement that led to its return to Chinese control in 1997 after more than a century and a half under British rule.

“Cost-cutting is unacceptable as a reason for dismissing Mr. Keung,” Alan Leong, the leader of the pro-democracy Civic Party, told reporters. “It shows how media owners and editors do not even bother to come up with better excuses anymore — no one would believe such an excuse.”

The dismissal was especially sensitive because Mr. Chong’s predecessor as chief editor, Kevin Lau Chun-to, was removed from the post in January 2014. That led to protests by journalists expressing fear that the Chinese Communist Party was encroaching on one of the city’s most venerable and independent-minded newspapers.

Mr. Lau’s removal — he has continued to work for Ming Pao’s parent company — coincided with Ming Pao’s cooperation with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists on a previous leak of offshore documents.

In February 2014, Mr. Lau was attacked on a Hong Kong street and left with severe cuts on his back and legs after being hacked by a cleaver. Last year, two men who said they had been offered 100,000 Hong Kong dollars, or about $12,900, to assault him were sentenced to 19 years in prison. The men were arrested in mainland China and sent to Hong Kong to be prosecuted. Who may have hired the men, or why, has never been disclosed.

Mr. Chong, a Malaysian, was expected by many journalists and political observers to toe an editorial line closer to Beijing. But Ming Pao continued to publish stories that gave a voice to people at the fringes of Hong Kong society and to question those in power. The paper won awards for its coverage of the pro-democracy street protests that swept Hong Kong in late 2014.

Yuen Chan, a senior lecturer in journalism at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, pointed to Mr. Keung as one of the reasons Ming Pao was able to maintain a large degree of editorial independence.

“A lot of people inside the newspaper do credit Keung Kwok-yuen with that,” Ms. Chan said by phone. “They credit him as the person who would take the pressure and show the leadership so the reporters and editors who worked under him could go ahead and do their work.”

Ms. Chan and the Ming Pao employees’ association did not assert that Mr. Keung’s firing was because of the publication of the Panama Papers story.

“Nobody has been able to give one smoking gun reason,” she said.

The South China Morning Post, Hong Kong’s leading English-language daily, also published an article on Wednesday about the offshore holdings of noted residents that were revealed in the recent leak and had been obtained from a Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca.

The law firm’s Hong Kong office, in an upscale shopping district, is its busiest. One internationally known figure from the city tied to offshore holdings and featured in the Ming Pao report was Jackie Chan, the movie star and martial artist.

Other prominent Hong Kong figures named by both newspapers include Li Ka-shing, a property magnate who is Hong Kong’s richest individual, and Henry Tang, the former chief secretary for Hong Kong, the No. 2 post in the city government.

「經營困難」 明報炒執行總編

香港《明報》執行總編輯姜國元昨天凌晨突被解雇，明報集團指出，「報業經營困難，公司需積極採取節流緊縮政策，減少人手實非得已」。明報發表聲明指出，這次裁減涉及業務和編採部門人員，當中包括高層人員；公司希望盡快度過困難時刻，編採方針保持不變。

紐時中文網《明報》周三頭版以全版篇幅發了一篇文章，報導了「巴拿馬文件」披露的香港政商巨子和知名人物的離岸賬戶。隨後，該報執行總編輯即被解職。

香港有很多人認為，解聘執行總編姜國元與這篇頭版文章有關。香港蘋果日報則指姜國元疑因處理「六四」等敏感新聞得罪高層。

蘋果日報報導，姜國元在明報工作約17年，以筆名安裕寫專欄。明報職工協會昨午在臉書公布姜國元凌晨突遭解雇，「明報職工協會對事件表示極度憤怒及不滿……實際是對新聞編採上有不同意見的人員，作出懲處。」

另據明報報導，明報職工協會對姜國元被解雇表示憤怒及不滿，表示編採人員對編輯部管理層接二連三突然被換走感極大憂慮，質疑公司以減資源為由懲罰不同意見者。

鍾天祥昨向逾百編輯部員工交代，表示香港報業進入寒冬，很多報紙面對極大挑戰，明報亦走上同一道路。他指出，公司須節流，目標為8%，而解雇姜國元是其中一個配套。被多次追問解雇姜國元原因及是否其決定，鍾天祥沒正面回應，重複裁員的三個準則：第一是裁減表現不好的員工；第二是新來員工先走，但非每一個新來的都要他們非走不可；第三則是薪金最高的員工。「拿最高薪水的人，編輯部裡頭，就兩個，一個我，一個就是我的最得力的助手姜國元。」

據報導，職工協會於晚上7時多，安排員工到報館樓下外牆，貼上多個「不明不白」標語表態。職工協會主席曾錦雯昨晚表示，回歸後經歷過數次經濟起落，從未發生過如此突然解雇省開支，該會將要求管理層交代，繼續蒐集員工意見以決定下一步行動

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/21/world/asia/hong-kong-ming-pao-editor.html

紐約時報中文版翻譯：
http://cn.nytimes.com/china/20160420/c20hongkong/zh-hant/

2016-04-22世界日報 香港新聞組