For well over a decade each morning, I received from the Information Services Department a summary of what the media was reporting that day. This was invaluable in helping me do my job. Countless other correspondents, diplomats, academics and others also received the summary.
Now, the government has decided to discontinue the service. Actually, they stopped it abruptly in April, without any explanation. However, a number of people, including me, appealed to director Yvonne Choi Ying-pik to resume the service.
In an e-mail to Ms Choi, I wrote: 'I understand that the primary reason for the compiling of the media summary was to help expatriate civil servants who do not read Chinese to understand more about current issues. Of course, it is also extremely helpful to foreign correspondents and journalists like myself to arrive at a better understanding of the Hong Kong situation. I am sure you agree that better-informed journalists are in the interest of the Hong Kong government as well, since they will be able to write more accurately about the Hong Kong situation, enabling readers both here and overseas to obtain a better idea of Hong Kong.'
At a farewell dinner given by Ms Choi for Tyler Marshall, the Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, a number of correspondents, including Marshall, appealed to Ms Choi to make the media summary available again. She promised to reconsider the matter.
This month, knowing that a decision was imminent, I again contacted Ms Choi, saying of the media summary: 'It has been a great help to me over the last 10 years. It makes journalists better informed and, I am sure you will agree, well-informed journalists have a better chance to be good journalists than ones that are not well informed.'
Alas, a few days ago, Ms Choi sent a reply to me and others interested in the issue, saying that the media summary will not be made available, either to journalists or anyone else outside government.
