Letters | Why RTHK should follow editorial line set by Hong Kong government

  • Media organisations around the world are defined by the stance and political leanings of their publisher or owner. Why should RTHK journalists be exempt?
  • Controversial programmes, if they are as popular as claimed, should find a home with a commercial broadcaster

The RTHK office in Kowloon Tong. In any media organisation around the world, “editorial independence” is not an unqualified privilege. Photo: K.Y. Cheng
With reference to your editorial on May 25 (“Re-examine RTHK’s dual role in highly politicised climate”), I wish to point out that RTHK staff are a very privileged lot indeed. They enjoy editorial independence as journalists, as well as security of tenure afforded by their civil servant status, but they are strangely immune from the constraints and obligations applicable to all other journalists and government departments.

I say this because, in any media organisation around the world, “editorial independence” is not an unqualified privilege. Media organisations have their own character-defining stance and political leanings, and these are decided by the publisher or owner, not the editor.

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