In order to get more insights to the news industry in Hong Kong, I had to go book hunting. There aren’t many book shops left in Hong Kong, so I first visited Eslite, a bookshop which originated in Taiwan.
No luck finding any titles related to Hong Kong journalism, but then I managed to pick up Merchants of Truth : Inside the News Revolution by Jill Abramson, former editor of The New York Times.
Plus I found out that Jamie Hewlett (my hero) has released a a new book filled with his artwork, I could not resist!
So then I went to my go-to bookshop Sam Kee, a place known for fostering cats and a massive collection of books old and new.
There is a section on news and media in the 2nd hand section. It was a great find, after flipping through all 10 of them I made my selection :
One problem remained though, these books date back around 8 to 10 years ago, they seem like they could still be a good read in to the HK news industry, but that my topic is to look in to something more recent, so I went over to where they sell new books.
Aside from sidetracking and picking up a book documenting neon signs of Hong Kong, most new books bear titles such as : After the Revolution, Is Hong Kong Free?, and so I picked a chat with one of the shop owners and found out that it has been the trend for book publishing in the past year : most writers base their publications on politics or doubts about the Chinese government. “Are there any titles about the news industry?”, he kindly dug into a pile for a while and announced that there WAS a Chinese copy of Fake News but someone must have bought it.
Most of these publications were published in the early 2000s and that it is understood that many of the content could be outdated with the rise of the smartphone + the shift in the political atmosphere in result of the Umbrella Revolution of 2014 and the Anti- Extradition Bill Protest in 2019, but I think that this material is still worth a quick read through in understanding how the news and media function here in Hong Kong in a traditional sense. From my experience in the past modules, this could help raise querstions in comparing traditional values with the new and hopefully result in interesting conversations and thoughts in future inter views and research.
So in the coming weeks I will continue my search for the right books, meanwhile Ill be digging in to the books on hand to see what I can learn from them.
I have also remembered a friend working as Chief Editor for 01News and am planning to get in touch with him after the Chinese New Year holiday.
ANDY WAS HERE
ANDY was here 🤓 