Public has a right to be kept informed
Judging from the reaction of mainland officials to media queries about whether Major-General Zhou Borong tried to cross the border without a closed-road permit on May 27, people could easily get the impression the media have been unfair to General Zhou.
But if they look back at the sequence of events they are more likely to agree the media have only been fulfilling their role as a watchdog over government.
Immediately after the border incident, news of the dispute between the PLA General and Customs officials spread through the junior ranks of the Customs and Excise Department.
Before the South China Morning Post reported the dispute, other media are believed to have received anonymous calls from disgruntled Customs staff about what happened.
But, as expected, officials were economical with the truth and suggested they had not heard of the incident. This outright denial did not stop journalists and Customs staff from pursuing the matter. Frustrated Customs staff voiced their grievance through a more effective channel, a popular Radio Television Hong Kong phone-in programme.
Only after the programme revealed the contents of a fax sent by an anonymous Customs official did other media follow up the story and legislators express their concern: hence last Friday's special Legislative Council security panel meeting where more details emerged.
From the Legco briefing, it is apparent the incident was not a minor one, as some mainland officials have suggested.
Officials have confirmed that after the incident General Zhou queried procedures with the Hong Kong authorities and senior Customs officials handed out a list of PLA vehicles to border Customs officers 'to avoid misunderstandings'.
If the RTHK programme had not revealed the content of the fax and if Hong Kong people had not called in to lend their support to the disgruntled Customs staff, would we have been informed that the dispute had taken place? Without the Legco inquiry it is doubtful whether Customs would have withdrawn the list of 29 PLA vehicles given to frontline staff and PLA officials could have got the impression that their complaint to Customs had been effective.
If this was the case they could believe that from now on - regardless of the rules - they could enter and leave Hong Kong as they please, without following necessary procedures.
To judge whether the media were right to report the incident so prominently and press the Government to divulge more details, one cannot take a simplistic view that it was all caused by some language difficulties.
Obviously, the incident involved a language problem but it also reflected the attitudes of some local officials as to how they should deal with the PLA and the expectation of the PLA as to how it should be treated in Hong Kong.
The incident also demonstrated the media's very important role in reporting fearlessly any anomalous practices by the authorities that will undermine the Hong Kong system, and in holding the Government accountable to the community it serves.
According to a recent survey conducted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong's Journalism and Communication Department, Hong Kong journalists were fearless critics of the Hong Kong Government but most believed their colleagues had greater reservations about criticising China.
Let us hope the journalists responding to the survey were wrong because we know from the Lok Ma Chau incident that if Hong Kong is to preserve its fine values and systems, the media cannot give up and they have to speak up.
