Consumer Council suspends awards co-hosted with Hong Kong Journalists Association pending review
- Watchdog says awards will be ‘suspended temporarily’ while format is reviewed amid changing media landscape
- Pro-establishment figures have recently taken aim at co-organiser Hong Kong Journalists Association, which says cancellation is ‘pitiful’
Hong Kong’s consumer watchdog has suspended the staging of its annual journalism awards pending a full review, citing the need to keep up with the changing media landscape.
The report also referred to Hong Kong deputies to the National People’s Congress, China’s legislature, suggesting that the association’s role as co-organiser posed questions over the fairness of the annual competition and could tarnish the reputation of the Consumer Council, a statutory body.
Senior security officials in recent months have repeatedly targeted the association, which has been critical of the government.
In an interview with Ta Kung Pao in September, Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung queried whether the association was representative, saying its executive committee was filled with “many student journalists”.
Responding to the accusations, HKJA chairman Ronson Chan Ron-sing said Tang’s information was factually incorrect as students accounted for just 60 of the group’s 459 members, or 13 per cent. Only one of its 11 executive committee members is a student, according to Chan.
Since 2001, the Consumer Council, HKJA and Hong Kong Press Photographers Association have co-organised the awards to raise public awareness of consumer rights, and to award excellence in press coverage of such issues.