The media: everybody's favourite whipping boy

Raymond Wu Wai-yung, a veteran pro-Beijing figure, is adamant the Hong Kong media has done a poor job since the handover. The media, he says, is partly to blame for the tension in mainland-Hong Kong relations and the divisions in society.

Dr Wu said the media should bear in mind its social responsibility when reporting on politics, just as in its coverage of sex and violence.

The local deputy to the National People's Congress is not the only person worried about the local media. In the past few years, media-bashing has been a constant theme in the city's political debate.

Last week Tsang Yok-sing, former chairman of the Democratic Alliance for Betterment of Hong Kong, was engaged in an on-air discussion on the party's stance on right-of-abode claimants with Peter Lam Yuk-wah, a co-host of Commercial Radio's talk show Teacup in a Storm, when, after complaining of unfair criticism, he abruptly hung up.

Later, Mr Tsang was at pains to explain he had merely been in a hurry.

One day earlier, Mr Tsang expressed his grievances at a Chinese University conference about he and his colleagues not getting a fair share of air time in phone-in programmes.

At the other end of the political spectrum, the Democratic Party has misgivings about the media for portraying it as a party that opposes anything the Beijing and Hong Kong governments do.