Some myths about self-censorship and threats to press freedom

The watchdog [Freedom House] said Beijing's enormous economic power and influence had allowed it to exert "considerable indirect pressure" on the city's media that has led to growing self-censorship.

It said the environment for media freedom had declined further in 2014 as "physical attacks against journalists increased, massive cyberattacks crippled widely read news sites at politically significant moments and businesses withdrew advertising from outlets that were critical of Beijing and supportive of pro-democracy protesters."

It's time to clear the air here. Hong Kong has one of the bitchiest, liveliest media environments I have seen anywhere in the world and belongs in the top 10 in any country ranking for press freedom, not the No 83 it has been assigned by this social concern group. Let's go through these criticisms one by one:

I have never understood quite what this means. It implies that the journalists in question are in fear of an official censor and delete sensitive text in their copy rather than anger the censor with it.

But the closest thing I know of to an official censor restricts his job to keeping the worst pornography out of public cinemas. I am aware of no other restrictions established by the authorities other than those of the laws of libel. Under what self-imposed guidelines do these journalists then censor themselves?

I suppose they may say they are under pressure to restrain themselves from expressing their political views in their copy. But that's all to the better. I don't want their political views. I want them to report accurately on the views of other people who have more formal competence in formulating and expressing such views. Yes, I have made an exception of myself here. Go ahead, dwell on it.