Government attempts to manipulate the media are hardly headline news in Hong Kong, or elsewhere. But, in a rather worrying sort of way, the special administrative region government should be congratulated on its success in persuading the public that it has become more open, while the majority of journalists who deal with officials think otherwise.
These conclusions are contained in a new report from the Hong Kong Journalists Association, which found that 30 per cent of journalists surveyed thought the government was less open than at the time of the handover in 1997, while 26 per cent thought it was more open, and 19 per cent saw no change.
In sharp contrast, respondents from among the general public were overwhelmingly of the view that the administration had become more open - almost 46 per cent shared this opinion, while 24 per cent disagreed.
Maybe this is a tribute to the style of Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, which stands in vivid contrast to that of his predecessor, Tung Chee-hwa.
However, the reality of the situation is that the Tsang administration is not so much media-friendly as it is media-conscious.
One aspect of this, as the report notes, is that Mr Tsang's team has restored the former practice of the Patten administration in holding daily reviews of media coverage and planning ways of responding to negative reporting.