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Human Rights Issues -- August 1999
The Threat of Media Regulation: The proposal of setting up of a Statutory Press Council suggested by the Law Reform Commission of Hong Kong (August, 99) (Article 19)
With reference to the deterioration of the morality of mass media, the Law Reform Commission had made an intensive discussion to examine whether legislative or other measures were needed to protect the privacy of individuals against the undue interference by the news media. The first call focused on the creation of two civil torts covering invasion of privacy and the second call focused on the regulation of media intrusion. The Commission proposed to establish a statutory Press Council for the Protection of Privacy (PCPP). It was recommended that the Council should have jurisdiction over newspapers and magazines registered under the Registration of Local Newspaper Ordinance (Cap 268). The Council could draw up a code of practice for the press and consider violations of privacy allegedly committed by newspapers and magazines.
The media industry generally opposed to the proposal and feared that the government would use the Press Council to intervene with the freedom of publications. In its report to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, Hong Kong Journalist Association (HKJA) pointed out that it would be dangerous to set up such body in a place with considerable deficit democracy. Moreover, the media should exercise self-regulation through establishing a more accountable mechanism. The Government spokesman stated that the Government actually did not have any stand on the matter that whether to establish the Press Council and all citizens were welcomed to express their viewpoints openly.
The public generally agreed to establish the Press Council in the first stance. According to the polls conducted by the Hong Kong Policy Research Institute in August, the majority (69.3%) supported to set up a statutory press council in monitoring mass media. However, after having continuous debates, more people supported the mass media could self-monitor by having guidelines. In September, there was about 48% (31% in August) respondents believed the media could monitor themselves. Also, about 31% (24% in August) of the respondents disagreed to establish the statutory Press Council.
According to the poll conducted by the Lingnan University, it showed that more than half number of the journalists was dissatisfied with the current media ethics. They thought that the best way to handle the problem was by self-regulation. In the poll of 1,026 journalists on the proposed Press council to guard against intrusions of privacy, only 41% took intrusions of privacy as their concerns, whereas 51% nad 71% of them showed their concerns about inaccurate reporting and sex and violence respectively. Also, 73.6% of the respondents opposed to establish the statutory Press Council to monitor the media. The journalist groups would offer a code of ethics for media owners to adopt after a three-month consultation.