Jobless media people are thick on the ground these days. The Express News, a Hong Kong daily newspaper, closed on Sunday; the CNBC offices in Chai Wan shut last month after it merged with Asia Business News; and staff at RTHK fear replacement by shovellers of propaganda.
Bad time to be in the media? Not necessarily. A look at the history of the media in Hong Kong and the rest of China shows it to be in growth mode - although not in the ways one might expect.
The first newspapers to circulate in the Ladrones (the 'pirate islands' which became Hong Kong) were hand-me-down copies of Guangzhou trading community sheets, such as The Canton Register, founded 1827.
In the mid-1800s, travellers to northern China could read the Peking Gazette, a voice of the Government of China, which claimed to be 'the oldest newspaper in the world'. There were independent presses in China, but they tended to produce historical records, often in the pronouncement style of Confucius and the sages.
The first real Hong Kong newspaper was the Friend of China, launched on March 17, 1842, by an American Baptist minister and a London emigrant. It took an independent view, arguing that opium sales were a bad thing.
The Canton Register moved to Hong Kong in 1843, and took a pro-opium stance. Since it was funded by the Matheson family of Jardines fame, this can be seen as an early example of proprietorial influence.
