Hopes and fears for post-97 media

A GROUP of journalism students who recently received scholarships from a television network say they are concerned about media freedom after 1997, but feel they will still be able to pursue their careers.

The eight undergraduates were each awarded $3,000 in the STAR TV Scholarships - the first set of scholarships awarded by the Hong Kong-based satellite TV network.

When asked if they thought journalists would face constraints after the handover, Karina Chan Po-po, a Year Four journalism major at Hong Kong Shue Yan College said: 'I don't think 1997 will be a hindrance to the profession.

'In fact, I think it will make being a journalist or a broadcaster more exciting and challenging because they will have to get their job done skilfully based on certain rules.' She and classmate Ngai Wai-chi completed three-month internships in local television station news rooms last summer.

'Sometimes the excitement came from whether we could beat other stations getting good footage or any footage at all,' Chan said.

Another scholarship student, Clarence Tsui Hong-chee, a final year journalism student at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, was optimistic about 1997.