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Elaine Yau

Advocacy journalism undermining the neutral role of newspapers,  critics say
Former chief secretary Anson Chan Fang On-sang's victory in the  Hong Kong Island Legislative Council by-election ended months of intense campaigning and blanket media coverage.
On the tension-filled election day - December 2 - rival camps pulled out all the stops to rally  11th-hour support for their candidates.
The media also had a field day reporting on the latest poll results.
At 5pm on the day, the special editions published by a local mass-circulation newspaper swamped the streets,  proclaiming the 'grave situation' facing Mrs Chan.
The controversial move by Apple Daily was criticised as a deliberate attempt to sway voters.  The bad  precedent set by the pro-democracy paper is a classic example of advocacy journalism.
Advocacy journalism, where writers and reporters of a publication express a subjective view or promote a certain cause, has long been  blamed for undermining journalistic  ethics, such as balanced and unbiased reporting.
Instead of  expressing their views  in  editorial  or op-ed pages, more and more newspaper and magazine writers spike their news reports with their personal opinions.
Their covert viewpoints  embedded in the stories  are only obvious to discerning eyes.
The majority of readers, who buy newspapers to get more information, might absorb their reports as fact and develop a warped view on current issues.
The local mass-circulation papers have been criticised for their  gory and exaggerated portrayal of events.
Many of them unabashedly pass off biased accounts as factual and objective news reports.
The reports of arch-rivals Apple Daily and Oriental Daily often serve as a textbook case of advocacy journalism.
On July 1, 2003, when 500,000 people  took to the streets to protest against the poor administration of Tung Chee-hwa and the Article 23 legislation, Apple Daily  came up with an appeal-style headline - 'Hit the Streets. We won't leave until we see you there'. Posters with the  'We don't want Tung Chee-hwa' message were given free with the newspapers.
The pro-Beijing conservative Oriental Daily also arouses much controversy with its often vitriolic reports on  court cases involving the publications of its arch-enemy, Next Media.
'It is not only Apple Daily and Oriental Daily which take a clear position on certain issues. The most obvious examples are, of course, the Beijing-backed newspapers in Hong Kong. They have been reporting with particular political stances for decades,' said Joyce Nip, assistant professor of the department of journalism at Hong Kong Baptist University.
Countering the vehement criticisms against biased  news reports,  some industry insiders argue that the ideal of media neutrality is impossible in practice.
Out of concern for their corporate sponsors, advertisers and the incumbent administration, media outlets are often obliged to produce news reports that best serve their  interests.
'Although neutrality is now accepted in the west as one of the fundamental principles of journalistic practice, it is a relatively recent principle. Over the years, journalism in the west evolved as a political struggle against the state,' Dr Nip said.
'Every newspaper took a political stance. It was only in the early  19th century when the penny press appeared in the US - when the price of a newspaper copy was lowered to one penny - that newspapers became apolitical as they broadened their readership.'
Despite the lack of a long-standing tradition, Dr Nip believed that neutral reporting would better enable the press to play the role of building democracy in society.



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