Some university student union leaders have made me almost proud to be a journalist. Several from Polytechnic University and Chinese University snubbed a meeting with the chief executive last week because they were not allowed to open it to reporters. This is the perceived power of the media.
Any reporter would have been more than happy to be invited. But it's not clear why the student leaders believed it would serve their constituencies - other students - to refuse a meeting with Donald Tsang Yam-kuen just because journalists couldn't be there.
If they had refused because they opposed Mr Tsang's policies and his administration, or because they simply didn't like his face, I could (more than) understand. But that wasn't the reason they gave.
'We appreciated the chief executive consulting students on constitutional affairs,' said Li Yiu-kee of the Chinese University union. 'But we cannot accept a closed-door discussion.'
The meeting, last Wednesday, was supposed to be an ice-breaker between Mr Tsang and student leaders from the seven tertiary institutions and the Hong Kong Federation of Students.
They were to discuss the city's constitutional development and education policy. It would have been a chance for the students to talk about their concerns on these issues.
