Answering charges: our mission remains to tell the truth

OUR FORMER BEIJING bureau chief has made allegations about the independence of the South China Morning Post's news reporting, especially on China. These are issues that I, as the Editor, take seriously, since the credibility and integrity of our reporting lies at the very heart of what we stand for as a newspaper.

The charge that has been laid repeatedly against this newspaper, particularly its reporting on China, is that of self-censorship - in other words, avoiding reporting on issues that the mainland authorities might find offensive. It has become customary for people who are dismissed, or who resign, from the newspaper to claim the Post is censoring itself to avoid offending the authorities in Beijing. These charges find a ready echo among those who are convinced that it is impossible for Hong Kong to have an independent newspaper, and are eager to pounce on any evidence that seems to back up their beliefs and prejudices.

Whatever the motivation, each time someone makes these charges, I examine them seriously to make sure we are not falling short of the standards of fairness, objectivity and integrity that I and my colleagues set ourselves.

In a series of media interviews, our former Beijing bureau chief has claimed that issues such as the Falun Gong, Tibet and labour unrest on the mainland had become taboo subjects and were played down in the newspaper. A glance through our pages will demonstrate that these are all issues that we have covered as and when they crop up. We judge them in the same way we judge every event, on the basis of newsworthiness and public interest. We have nothing to gain by playing down events that we believe to be significant. If we were to do so, we would stand to lose our most precious asset: our credibility with our readers.

Any suggestion that our reporters have been told not to cover certain issues is quite simply not true. The suggestion that our news coverage is somehow directed by the authorities in Beijing is a complete distortion of reality. As evidence of our unwillingness to offend the Chinese authorities, it has been suggested that we prefer to use news agency reports rather than reports from our own staff for issues that are deemed sensitive. Besides being untrue, this argument is illogical. If we were really worried about offending the Chinese Government, then we would not even use the news agencies to report on these issues. It is true that our China pages often have reports from the major news agencies. But that is because there is a limit to the number of reports that our small staff on the mainland can produce on a given day.

It is not my intention to rebut point by point the various charges that my former colleague has made against me, against our China editor or against the newspaper as a whole. Ultimately, deciding the value and quality of our reporting should be left to our readers, who are the best, and I believe the only relevant, judges of what we do.