When myths collide with facts in media and public opinion
News on Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee’s complaint against RTHK program host Erik Mak Ka-wai prompted me to search for the clip and watch it on YouTube. It has been a while since I last saw Face to Face (In Chinese, the Friday Home Court) — Erik’s talk show. I found myself, once again, distracted by his handsome looks and cute smile. Most of what he actually said escaped me, but I guess it must have been something about democracy and government procedural fairness, or things of that nature.
Apparently Regina was too mature to fall for Erik’s appearance, and concentrated on his comments instead. She then concluded that Erik was treating her unprofessionally and rudely. This may be true, but wasn’t it to be expected? After all the first episode of Face to Face saw Secretary for Justice Rimsky Yuen Kwok-keung face a tough grilling from Erik over his referral to Beijing on the interpretation of the right of abode under the Basic Law. Several times, Erik cut Rimsky off as he answered.
Regina fared not too badly compared with other guests on the show. The follow-up complaints made her look tough, but this was quite a smart move.
Erik was not able to get the better of Regina. At one point, he challenged her on the socalled “white terror” in Hong Kong, arguing that the government had tightened its grip on the media. Asked to justify the allegations, he mentioned the re-scheduling of Li Wai-ling’s program on Commercial Radio and problems with the launch of the Digital Broadcasting Corporation (DBC).
Regina rightly responded that the circumstances of the two cases were quite different. Both involved commercial decisions which had nothing to do with government censorship. To this, Erik lamely said: “But people in Hong Kong are feeling an intensified censorship.” This was the moment, I believe, when he lost the debate.
It seems that Erik can sometimes still be the student activist he once was years ago. That explains why he did not continue pursuing law and took up journalism instead. While you can’t talk like that in front of a judge (“But my client did not feel that he was stealing”), today in Hong Kong you can write like this in a newspaper, or talk like this on a talk show.
This often gets to a point where it is laughable, but no one is laughing. A couple of years ago, there were rumors that mainlanders abducted babies in Kowloon. Strangely enough, we didn’t see a mother on TV crying — probably because the media could not find a mother who fit the profile. I also remember a piece of “analysis”, where the writer (a seasoned journalist, I am sure) said the increasing number of mainland tourists staying in Kowloon motels was proof that there must be a link between the mainlanders and babies allegedly missing.
But the best, again, came from TVB, where its news program featured a real-time opinion poll showing the percentage of people who believed that the (probably fictional) missing babies were being taken away by mainlanders. The question of whether babies were actually missing had been forgotten. All my friends shared their fears about the issue on Facebook as facts. The more critical made “better safe than sorry” excuses.
After that episode, I realized that news in Hong Kong was not about the five Ws — who, what, where, when, and why — but the two Fs, the first is feel and the second can’t be printed here.
Recent events surrounding the unfortunate death of a baby girl would almost have become a re-enactment of the whole thing, only this time facts and myths collide. The city joined in the search after the mother told police that a middle-aged woman “with a mainland accent” and an accomplice had abducted her baby in the streets, only to find the girl had “accidentally” died at home.
It would be trivial to say the mainland has now become an all-purpose place of evil, so a Hong Kong mother can tell her children: “If you don’t eat your carrots the mainlanders will come and kidnap you tonight.” The less trivial point is the question of how many proverbial babies are thrown out with the bathwater by Hongkongers, while claiming this is the unfortunate, but inevitable consequence of increased Hong Kong-mainland interaction. Despite the confused metaphor, this is not a rhetorical question.