Professor Alan Knight bemoans the lack of investigative journalism ('Handover coverage just press releases', South China Morning Post, June 11), yet it wouldn't take much investigation on his part to at least get some facts right.
If his survey was based on studies of ITN (Independent Television News) in Britain he would know ITN did not rely on 'parachute journalism'. We have had an office and correspondents based in Hong Kong for more than 12 years and ITN's Channel Four bureau has been here for more than three years.
The BBC, America's CNN and other European networks have also been based here for a considerable period.
He talks about journalists 'accepting a confection scripted for them by Britain and China'. Well, he can't have seen much of ITN's handover coverage which ran for months, even years, before the day itself, coverage of the political conflict and countless features about the fears and hopes of the people of Hong Kong.
His most alarming statement was that foreign reporters are becoming an anachronism. That will be music to the ears of the authoritarian rulers of the world who censor, even silence, their domestic journalists, often in the most brutal ways. Former Indonesian president Suharto would have lasted a lot longer had it not been for pictures of riots which were beamed round the world. Yes, we 'parachuted' in there, but few news organisations have the resources to be based everywhere.
Maybe we should reserve judgment until the full survey is published but, on the face of it, it seems the maxim has been fulfilled: those who can, do; those who can't compile academic studies.