In yesterday's inquiry into the polling issue, the South China Morning Post was accused of distorting the views of pollster Robert Chung Ting-yiu, the central figure of an inquiry into whether the Government tried to halt his public opinion polls because it didn't like their findings.
This newspaper would like to make clear that it reported Dr Chung's views accurately. It made no meaningful changes to his words, as shown by the extracts published on this page.
In the column he wrote for us, in two follow-up interviews, and in some subsequent public statements, Dr Chung emphasised that he believed pressure to halt his polling came from Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa 'via a special channel'.
At no time during the 33 days since his original column was published, until yesterday when undergoing intensive cross-examination, did he suggest otherwise. In fact, written communications from Dr Chung, received before the initial column was published on July 7, state explicitly that he believed Mr Tung was the source of the pressure he felt.
He may have been wrong; the 'special channel' may only have been speaking for himself, while leaving the impression that he was also speaking for the Chief Executive. That is one of the many questions the panel of inquiry hopes to answer.
In yesterday's hearing, Alan Hoo, a lawyer representing a senior aide to Mr Tung, raised wholly extraneous questions about the Post's coverage. He focused on such things as minor editing changes made for reasons of clarity, whether a pronoun was deleted and who wrote the headline which appeared over the initial column. He tried to suggest that the Post's reporting on this subject was reckless and irresponsible.