THEY worked twice as long and twice as hard as the Preliminary Working Committee (PWC) members. They spent the evenings going from room to room, squeezing information out of the Hong Kong members. Towards midnight they withdrew into their own rooms to write their stories, calling up the members from their sleep to check up on various details.
In the early morning, when the first PWC members went downstairs for breakfast, they were all there, cameras and recorders ready. They kept guard outside the conference room before and after each meeting. If there was an activity away from the hotel, they followed the members out into the cold, and when the members returned they were waiting in the hotel lobby.
They were the Hong Kong reporters covering the PWC plenary session in Beijing. The team was 50-strong, including seven television crews.
The three-day expedition must have cost the Hong Kong media at least HK$500,000. You have to pay over $3,000 to fly economy class from Hong Kong to Beijing and back. Hotels in Beijing are expensive, and the Swissotel-run Hong Kong Macau Centre, where thePWC held its meetings and where most of the reporters stayed, is labelled five-star.
In order not to miss any simultaneous events, each of the newspapers, radio and TV stations were represented by more than one reporter, and some sent as many as four or five. No doubt they believed they were getting good value for their money. They sent their best people. One veteran was known to turn out six articles in a day for her paper.
It was not always a pleasurable experience to be confronted by these news hunters. Many a time I would walk into the hotel lobby, pretending to be absorbed in some serious thought to notice the mikes and cameras until they were thrust right into my face.