Januaยกy-February
1983
IHE
Afouchofclass
'T#ËEä
GflRRESPfl]IIDENT
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END OF STORY It has been a sad few months for many FCC members. Some old friends have filed their last copy. Among them were such notable newsmen as the doyen of China Watchers, Sidney Liu of Newsweek. and the much-loved June Shaplen whose husband, Robert, was for many years the New Yorker man in Asia. June, of course, was a leading journalist in her own right. Sidney died suddenly in Hong Kong. June, after a long illness. passed away in her native America. The years took their toll of others, too. One long-time member who died recently was Peter Williams, taipan of the lnchape Group and former chairman of the Stewards of the Jockey Club. "P.G." as his many friends knew him, had been a Club member for many years and was known as much for his kindness as for his incisive business acumen. He was less known for his ready wit but those who knew him best remembered his quiet and composed sense of humour which came to the surface when he was with those with whom he felt relaxed. Another friend of many Club members who recently passed away was Robert Drummond. Crippled for many years, he held court in his flat just around the corner from the new clubhouse. When Dina House was slotted for demolition, he had to find another home. lt was a tragedy that he collapsed the day he moved into new surroundings and died soon after. It was a sudden end for Sidney Liu. One day he was chatting to friends, The next he felt ill and booked himself.into hospital. ln the morning, he was dead. Many Club members would have liked to have attended his funeral, but the announcement caught many by surprise and they were unable to go. ln the bar of the FCC. however, Sidney was remembered the day of his funeral by a sizeable group of friends. He would not have wanted them to mourn his passing, his old companions felt. lnstead, they raised their glasses and emptied them and spoke about some of the remarkable prophesies about China that Sidney Liu had forecast in his stories and some of the character quirks and customs that made the slight and enigmatic figure larger than life. Even in death.
End of story.
B
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Golden Mile \("4¡do\ Hong lGng TST PO Box 95555, 50 Nathan Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong. Tel: 3-693111.
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Harbour View
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HongKong TST PO Box 98468, East Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong. Tel: 3-7215161.
"A couple of these rejection slips are quite encouraging . . ." Reprinted Courtesy of The Bulletin, Australia
A VETERAN RETIRES AFTER 42 IT'IEIT'IORABLE YEARS
Eddie Tseng did not have far to go to become a war correspondent. On December 8, 1g41, his elder brother called him to the balcony of their apartment in Shamshuipo. "The military has got a big practice going on at Kai Tak," his brother said, pointing to aircraft wheeling and diving over Kowloon. Eddie looked, saw the Rising Sun emblem
glinting on the wings of the aircraft and said "Practice hell. They've invaded.,' So they had. Reporter Tseng dashed to the telephone and called the South China Morning post where he was employed as a general ,eporier. Get up to the New Territories, he was told. So Eddie grabbed a cab and went to war.
It was to be the first of five wars he has
covered in a career which came to an end a couple of weeks ago when Eddie Tseng retired as head of the Central News Agency of Taiwan in Hongkong and publisher of the Hongkong Times atter 42 years as a newsman. He didn't like war then and he likes it even less now.
"Only fools and people who haven't seen what war does can like it," he says. He saw what it was like a few hours after he called the office when he arrived in yuenlong. The Japanese had smashed across the border and the British were in full retreat. Eddie Tseng was with them, telephoning in stories every couple of hours as he trudged south along Castle Peak Road with a rearguard of Scottish soldiers. By the time they had walked to Kowloon, the
The editor and most of the reportยกng staff were detained waiting to be sent to internment in Stanley Camp but Eddie thought it was worth the risk of going to the office to try to 'get the month's pay which was owed to him because he was penniless and starving. But the cashier told him the editor wanted to see him and when Eddie went into the editor's office there was an unfamiliar figure behind the desk. a Japanese called lto who was in charge of puttยกng out Hongkong News, an occupation English language paper on the Post presses. "He offered me a job and l told him as politely
as I could what he could do with it."
Eddie
recalls.
When the Japanese newsman got the message
he was not amused and promptly called the
military police to arrest the young reporter. Eddie hurried home, got his brother, collected bedding, clothes and whatever else they could carry and headed north towards the border. They crossed over at Shataukok and slowly made their way towards the city of Wuchow on the Kwangtung coast, an area of Free China which was stยกll held by Kuomintang troops. They tramped north for 16 days, dodging patrolling Japanese until they reached Wuchow. The first place he looked for was the Central News Agency office, an organisation to which he had already applied for a job before he left university.
When the fighting died down and
Japan
clamped Hongkong under military rule, he returned to his office in the old post building in Wyndham Street.
Eddie smiles as he sips his whisky and water..."l was an idealist in those days." His persuasion worked and he went to Yench-
ing University. He was recommended to CNA as a bright prospect, but by the time he had graduated in 1 939 the Japanese had occupied Canton. The nearest he could get to his home town was Hongkong and he began as a reporter for the English-language Daily Press before switching to the SCM Post. (He remembers on the Posr covering what was to prove to be one of the most complex, frustrating and mysterious assignments of his long and distinguished career - a cricket match. "l
didn't know what the hell was going on,"
he
admits."l still don't understand the game.") So by the time he reached Wuchow and found the CNA office located on board an old junk tied up at the waterfront, Eddie Tseng was an experienced reporter. He got a job, but once over not clear sailing.
that hurdle all was
He still had to get to CNA head office in the far distant wartime capital of Chungking and that
peninsula had fallen. Eddie found his way home only to discover the Japanese had set up artillery in the nearby police
sports ground and this had become a target for the British gunners on The peak. But he couldn't move because Japanese soldiers were shooting anyone who ventured out on the streets.
Eddie Tseng had become a reporter over the opposition of his family. His mother and brother were both doctors and he was to have followed them into a career in medicine. But after a vear in pre-med school at university in his native Canton, Eddie went to his father and said he wanted to be a newspaperman. "Doctors can save only one life at a time, but a journalist might be able to save many," he told his father.
One of Asia's most prominent newsmen and one of the Club's most popular members has for many years been Eddie E.P. Tseng of the Central News Agency. But now, after more than four decades of covering war, ranolution md riots - and the equally significant changes in economics, tade and trends - Eddie Tseng is calling it a day.
was easier said than done. He went by truck, jumping a lift from village to village across the breadth of China. The trucks were somewhat akin to the modern-day snakeboats that smuggle illegal immigrants into Hongkong. They were known as "Yellowfish" trucks because of their human cargo. "l was a yellow fish," Eddie explains. ln Chungking, he was placed on the English desk of the newsagency, handling translations and writing storยกes for the English service. When the American 14th Air Force began to build up its presence in China, Eddie Tseng was assigned to cover them because of his fluency in English.
Happy Birthday: Eddie at Panmunjom during the long peace talks which ended the Korean War and wheriz Eddie celebrated his 30th birthday. A bottle of wine to any reader who can identify the largest number of familiar faces in the picture. Surely, most correspondents will recognise the immortal Arnold Dibble who is one of those in the photograph.
From bomber command headquarters in Kunming and fighter command in Kweilin, he sent a constant stream of stories on the war in the air. It wasn't just a desk job; he went out on missions with the airmen. One, he remembers well... Agents had reported a Japanese naval convoy would be heading south through the Straits of Taiwan and the Americans decided to stage an aerial ambush. Eddie was aboard one
of the two B25s which
took off from Kunming, heavily loaded with bombs and fuel, and headed for a secret, makeshift airport levelled by farmers near the Fukien coast. The planes landed safely, refuelled
with aviation
spirit carried to the airport by hundreds of volunteers, then set off to keep their rendezvous with the unsuspecting Japanese. Sure enough, the agent had been correct and right on time the American airmen - and Eddie Tseng - spotted the nine-ship convoy, three destroyers and six freighters. "We went in at wave-top height," he recalls. "There was a new technique of skip bombing, dropping the bombs so they would skip across the water and explode in the side of the ship." This was demonstrated with devastating effect; two destroyers were hit, exploded spectacularly and sank.
"We were so low that you could see the faces of the Japanese as they leapt over the side of the ships," Eddie remembers. The surviving ships were attacked by the new 75mm cannons built into the nose of the 825s. But when the planes went back for a second pass, the Japanese were ready for them. "They threw everything they had at us," Eddie remembers as he tells how he clung to his seat in the cockpit and watched the tracers climb towards the 825, bullets smashing through the glass and steel around him. The B25s shuddered as the anti-aircraft fire hit them, but the pilots kept on course, swooping low over the derricks of the freighters, and poured their fire into the transports. "Would you like to g¡ve them a burst," the Captain shouted to Eddie. The pilot pointed the plane at one of the ships and the young reporter pressed down on the f¡ring button. "That's when I stopped being a correspondent for a minute and became a combatant," he grins. As they wheeled away to head for home, most of the Japanese convoy was in flames. Back on the ground at Kunming, they counted the bullet holes. "We had been hit 46 times," Eddie Tseng remembers. "lt was a wonder none of the crew were hit, too." Home for Eddie Tseng and many of the other war reporters covering China's desperate struggle against the invader was a ramshackle old collection of buildings that had once been a middle school.
This was the Foreign Correspodents' Club and in the bar gathered a collection of eccentricity, talent and expertise that would be hard to match. There were many of the Old Asia Hands who were to continue popping up at the front,lines in battles and wars from Burma to Saipan and Korea to vietnam. There was also a young refugee from the war employed as a junior waiter, a man who was to spend the next four decades in the service of the FCC, Mr Liao Chien-ping. There were some lively nights in the bar, Eddie remembers.
Liquor was in short supply - a crate of whisky would occasionally turn up with a new arrival who
had come "over the Hump" from lndia - and most of the time the newsmen slaked their thirst with a deadly concoction of orange juice and Chinese firewater.
The reporters used to say that if the Japanese didn't get them, the FCC cocktails would. "lt was no joke," Eddie says.
"lt was a potent brew,
murderous local
"The bombs saved many lives," he said. He speaks sadly because he was one of a group of eight correspondents who first visited Hiroshima and saw what the bomb had done.
Szchewan vodka."
While there, he met a stunning beauty who had once been a classmate at Un¡versity in Peking. More than 4O years later, Eddie and Betty Tseng
He had been prepared for devastation, but not for anything like the horror that greeted him and the other silent reporters who looked at what
are enjoying a second honeymoon in Australia and
remembering their brief courtship in Chungking as
the Nationalist redoubt shuddered under endless
remained of the city.
"lt
Japanese air raids.
But he was not long to remain in Chungking. The allies were about to strike back at the Japanese and Eddie Tseng headed south to Burma where two Chinese divisions under General Joseph Stilwell were engaged in bitter battle deep in
if a giant had gone berserk," he
"There was nothing. Nothing."
lmages remain stark in his mind...a glass factory melted by the thermal blast, turned into a sheet of solid melted glass like a huge skating rink, the survivors, pale and ghostlike as they
the tropical jungles.
It was like fighting in a green hell; the trees were 100ft high and blocked out the sun, the troops (and a small band of war correspondents known as Stilwell's lrregulars) were wet for weeks on end, bodies erupting with sores and most of them down with dysentery and malaria. But at the time ¡t was the only winning campaign in the war against the Japanese and Eddie Tseng's dispatches - sent over military radio - were received with interest. ln early 1945, he was on a truck convoy out, over the Burma Road to take embattled Free China the first outside supplies she had received by land during her eight years of ceaseless war against the Japanese. The tide was turning and Eddie Tseng was in forefront of fighting as the allies rolled back the lmperial Japanese Army; he was on the first longdistance air raid when the huge steel complex at Anshan in Manchuria was flattened by the U 20th Air Force, at Okinawa, on the great firebomb raid that razed Tokyo, in the Philippines when they were liberated, and on the Missouri when Japan signed the documents of unconditional surrender. It was while on patrol off the Japanese coast aboard American warships pounding the enemy mainland that he heard of the enormous new bomb which put an end to the war. After the hell of jungle warfare and the terror of battle in the air, being a war correspondent aboard a huge battleship like the USS Yorktown was a relaxed, easy life, he recalls. Particularly when his cabinmate was the ship's supply officer. It was while with the US navy off the Japanese coast that he heard of the mysterious new bomb which levelled entire cities; then, a few days later, came word of surrender. Despite the strict rule that US warships are "dry" Eddie recalls the celebrations that followed the news and the cheers that rang over the vessel as the medics broke out the medicinal brandy and the chaplain opened the stores of religious wine.
was as
recalls.
walked in a daze, covered in scabs and sores and barely human, the entire city covered in a scum of yellow ash... Eddie Tseng took up the job as bureau chief in Tokyo on the first day of Occupation'and ended it seven years later in 1952 on the last day of allied rule. Eddie Tseng's retirement came at an appropriate time. lt coincided with the departure from Hong Kong of another long-time FCC member, Keith Jackson, who resigned as head of the SCM Post Publications Division to start his own publishing business in Bangkok. Jækson spent l3 years in Hong Kong at the Standard, Star and Post. His skills at the dice table were matched only by those of his old friend Eddie Tseng and the couple could often be seen locked in combat over the green baize. Thry will have plenty of time to practice over the next few weeks when the two of them and their wives travel around Australia on a six-week holiday. Keith promises to make frequent trips up to Hong Kong from Thailand to get back some of the money Eddie has won from him over the years.
It was not only good news, it was going to put Eddie Tseng's name in a niche in the history books because he was aboard the Missouri when General Douglas MacArthur signed the surrender documents.
The five wire services on the ship drew lots about who would file the first 2OO words. AP, UP, INS and Reuters lost the draw. Eddie Tseng of Central News Agency of a China that was now free sat down and sent the happiest dispatch of his career..."ALLTED FORCES TODAY FORMALLY ACCEPTED THE JAPA¡úESE UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER ABOARD USS MISSOURI IN TOKYO BAY.''
It was finally over and looking back he
considers the use of the A-bombs to end the war a wise decision. The Americans were preparing a land invasion of Japan in which they expected one million casualties.
CNA then decided to start an English language service and he headed it until his transfer to London in 1958. During his long stretch as CNA chief in Europe he set up bureaux over the continent and himself covered many of the more notable international conferences and summit meetings. But in 1966. he was glad to come home to Asia, to head CNA in the important Hongkong office.
He came back at a newsworthy time because something - nobody knew what - was stirring in China.
That something was the Great
proletarian
Cultural Revolution and CNA was in the forefront of reporting and analysing newg from the Mainland during the years of turbulance and upheaval. Then came the ugly 1967 riots and bombings in Hongkong and once again Eddie Tseng was in the forefront with the news. ln recent years, in addition to being publisher and managing director of the Hongkong Times, Eddie Tseng has been as hard at work as ever, a 16-hour day being common. Now he looks forward somewhat uncertainly to retrrement. After 42 years, he feels he deserves a rest. As to the future? "l don't know when I will get sick of my own company," he says. "But when I do l'll look around for something to occupy my time." Nobody who knows him doubts that whatever he turns his capable hands to, it will be something in the field in which he has made so distinguished a mark - chasing news.
Press
-
whipping-boy of sick society
handwritten books of the monks of
wall of one's living room. lndeed, the
old.
necessary technology is already in place. But I suggest that the biggest
It
has given to newspapers a tool as Caxton never dreamed And it has given a new lease of life
of such power
of.
UNDER CONCERTED
VENOMOUS ATTACK By Sir Larry Lamb
Before I go into the reason why newspapers are alive and well
-
healthy state indeed. True, many titles were lost along the way. The press in America has undergone a dramatic - and traumatic - period of rationalisation, so that in most cities monopoly newspapers are the norm rather than the exception. Just how good that is for press freedom is open to question, but there can be no doubt that, as far as the survivors are concerned, it has been very good for the bottom line. Some big proprietors are so encouraged by the state of the industry that they are actually launching new newspapers. The Gannett chain, for example, is boldly challenging big and wellestabl ished metropolitan dailies in a score of cities with a national daily newspaper, "U.S.A. today", a new concept for America, whilst many companies, my own included, keep a
and
for that matter, living in Australia I suppose it is necessary to persuade you of the truth of the proposition. We have, after all, heard a great
to the contrary in recent years. The world is full of self-appointed pundits who have rushed to point out that television or radio or Prestel or satellites or some other unimaginable horror would mean the death of the deal
newspaper industry. Prophets of doom have abounded - here, in the United States, and in the United Kingdom. ln the 1960's, for example, the
late Lord Thomson of Fleet, one of the world's biggest newspaper magnates, forecast that there would be only four national newspapers left in the United Kingdom within a decade. He was wrong. There were nine national daily newspapers at that time, and there are nine today. There is one additional nationally-distributed Sunday paper, making a total of eight on Sundays. What is even more significant is that total purchases of those national dailies actually went up during Lord Thomson's doom decade - from 13 to 14 million, reflecting a readership of something close to 40 million a day. To put it another way, at the turn of the century, only one Briton in six read a daily newspaper. Today, with a vastly increased population, and all the competition in the world, there is only one Briton in six who does not. The story in Australia is very similar.
Overall, the position at this time is that the total number
of daily
and
sharp lookout
for newspaper publish-
ing opportunities, and are not afraid to invest on a massive scale when those
opportunities arise. Newspapers in Japan are not
Sunday newspapers in Australia
has
gone up by two in the 10 years under review, and the number of buyers has risen frsm 7,178,000 to 7,612,000 -
or
doing badly either. Technically they are, in some area. light years ahead of the rest of us, and they boast some of the highest circulations in the world.
largely because of the amorphous and rapidly changing nature of the industry.
I also have reason to believe that both Pravda and lzvestia reached record sales only a week or so ago. Why, then, is an industry which was apparently teetering on the edge of disaster only a few short years ago confounding all the critics? One of the reasons is, of course, computerised
However, most observers agree that what was universally regarded and described as a dying industry in the years immediately following World War ll is now, in most areas, in a very
the so-called "new" technology. The revolution brought about by computer¡sed photo-setting is probably no les dramatic than the difference between printing and the
6.O4o/o.
Not much evidence here of an industry which is dying on its feet, is there? Comparable figures for the United States are not easy to come by,
photo-setting
-
to a dying industry. But it would be foolish to attr¡bute to it a power of which it is not capable. lt is, in the end, just a tool. lt does not yet, of itsdf, make better newspapers. ln the end it is the old traditional skills and values which matter. Old journalistic skills, old advertising skills. Refined and honed and brought to bear on our ever-changing modern world. These skills will survive the printing revolution. lndeed, the revolution itself would be pointless without them. What the new technology does do, put brutally, is to enable newspapers dramatically to reduce their labour
lf it doesn't do that, we might well have stayed with Caxton. Of course, massive changes are under way in all arms of the media. Not only is the newspaper industry finally dragging itself, kicking and screaming, into the 20th century, but television is gowing up rapidly. We are beset and bewildered by a daily costs. as
barrage of stories about computerised electronic page make-up, statellite television, cable television, teletext, Prestel, oracle and the rest of the buzzwords used to describe systems of putting words on screen. I put it to you that none of these developments is fundamental. That they are no more than clever technological trickery. And that they do not herald a revolution in communications. Those who believe that they do are mistaking the shadow for the substance.
Certainly we are al ready in the era of the fully automated newspaper plant, with both journalists and telead girls having direct input to the press room computer. Certainly the time is not far distant when a great deal of the information we get from our newspapers
will be available on television
technological breakthrough of all in the communications industry was the advent of steam radio. For the first time, newspapers had a real contender. For the first time, there was a second, and devastatingly efficient, means of mass communication. But once the press had learned to live with this simple fact, the rest was all downhill. For what does television have to offer that the radio does not? Moving pictures, certainly. But it is no more effective as a means of communication because of moving p¡ctures. lndeed, the tendency is for the availability or otherwise of film, or video-tape, to distort news judgements. So that television becomes a less reliable medium than its older, more skilled, and more experienced compet¡tors. No. the fact is,-gentlemen, that the various news media are, generally speaking, complementary rather than competitive - and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. Radio and television do superbly what newspapers cannot. Their immediacy is exciting. But they are not always good at crossing the "t's"
and dotting the
"i's" of a complex
situation. A word, or a phrase,
missed
on what we call the "electronic" media is likely to be lost forever, in spite of ever more sophisticated recording techniques. A newspaper remains on one's lap. or on one's desk, for as long as one wishes, and can be referred to again and again. I would further put ¡t to you that it is possible to get every word spoken on a half-hour news
bulletin into a single tabloid
page.
I am, of course, a newspaperman. Like most newspapermen, I am a fanatic, bound to my craft by hoops of titanium, doomed to wander the world for ever with ink ¡n my veins; and the teeth of the Fourth Estate sunk firmly into my jugular. But I hope I am not a one-eyed
screens, or on the telephone, at the
newspaperman.
touch of a button, and can be up-dated minute by minute.
None of the so-called "new" technology is likely to change the fundamental truth that we need a// the media - as citizens and consumers, as producers and marketers, or merely as readers and viewers. This is not to say that we should
And it does not require a great leap of the imagination to envisage a situation in which it is possible to have a newspaper of the air, including advertisements, projected on to the
not welcome technological advances and work hard at exploiting them to
our best
advantage.
It is not long since we were told that TV would be the death of the newspaper industry. What has happened is that newspapers have used television to improve sa/es, both by direct advertising and by devoting many thousands of column inches to television matters. Television, on the other hand, depends upon the press to let people
know what is appearing on the box, and to awake, stimulate and maintain interest in its programmes. Far from tearing each other's throats out, they have learned to feed off each other. Of course, we should be prepared to use teletext, or any other medium, for marketing as soon as enough people are sufficiently,ìnterested to recetve tt. Of course, we should use satellites, or any other sophisticated gadgetry, to bring news from the rest of the world into our homes as it happens - just as soon as it is
commercially, as well as technically, practicable. But these things, like photosetting, are tools.
They are not fundamental
to our
trade.
So mV optimism about the newspaper industry springs largely from my faith in newspapermen. Newspapermen, from proprietors to copy boys, who have in the past few years, demonstrated that they have the courage and the f lexibility, the wit and the wisdom, to adapt to changing circumstances, and to derive the maximum advantage from them.
Whilst I think it ¡s true to that newspapers have depended,
say
and
will continue to depend, more upon people than upon technology. it would be foolish to deny or decry the huge advantages which computerisation has brought to the industry. As we saw earlier these advantages
for the moment, are mainly
concerned with dramatic reductions in
labour costs.
I wouldn't bore you with the technicalities even if I understood them properly, which I don't, but most of the new systems involve reporters, subeditors. or classif ied advertisement staff typing directly on to a desk top keyboard material which is reproduced elsewhere in the building as a photo-
I graph -'cold type, in the jargon of the trade. This, at a stroke, removes the need for large numbers of highly
skilled and highly paid craftsmen, who used to set type in molten metal from
typed or handwritten material.
There is little joy, among working newspapermen at the passing of these colourful characters, the true heirs of Caxton, but there is much relief along
the corridors of power, and joy unconf ined among the industry's bankers. One can see their point of view, since it is clear we are rapidly approaching a stage where there will be very few employees between the newsroom and the loading dock. Computerisation, of course, has other advantages. The output of the major wire services can be fed straight into the system, and extracted at the touch of a button. Some services which used to involve thousands of man-hours of expensive and compl icated setting - share prices, for example, or racing information - can now be called up and translated into type at will. The computer will at the same time handle accounts, billings and circulation records.
For those craftsmen still left in the print industr:y the future is very
under such concerted ill'formed, often venomous attack from so many quarters. So drunkeness is on the increase? It is the fault of those wicked newspapers, for projecting advertisements so skilfully. So violence stalks our cities? lt is because irresponsible editors sometimes choose to tell PeoPle that it happens.
So politicians have a bad Public
image? lt is not because of anYthing they do or say, or anything theY fail to do or say. It is because they are so consistently misreported in the unscrupulous capitalist press. We all feel, sometimes, in the newspaper business that any politician
or any bureaucrat with whom anY one of us happens to disagree, rushes to accuse us
of irresponsibility.
We all feel that our motives and our integrity, as well as our professionalism, are frequently called into question by people who do not have the slightest idea what they are talking about. It is perhaps too easy to shrug these things off. To say of ourselves, as we sometimes say of others, that if
we can't stand the heat we should get out of the kitchen. There are grave bleak indeed. Redundancy payments generous. But dangers inherent in this stance. For have, in general, been if lies are allowed to go unchallenged compensate a is not enough to money often enough, they become folk-lore. man whose skills are no longer required And if we permit to gain ground by his fellow men. They may - indeed, that we are an antiimpression the they mostly do - appreciate that automation is inevitable. But as author social industry, a lot of sick, uncaring cynics with our eyes immovably fixed Anthony Smith says in "Goodbye on the bottom line, then the clamour Gutenberg", one cannot expect people for swinging punitive action aga¡nst who have been sucked into a whirlus will become irresistible. pool to appreciate its beauty as a Many of our freedoms are under natural phenomenon. So, for most of attack. Some, indeed, have alreadY us, there is a touch of sadness assoclatdisappeared. Advertisers are increasinged with the relentless march of printing ly told what they may or may not technology. advertise, and when. There are Having established, then, that the increasing pressures to widen the range press is in a much healthier state. of things which publishers maY not overall, than some pundits would have publish. us believe, I would like to turn your The whole industry is threatened attention, for a moment, to the dangers in Australia, in the United Kingdom, which beset it. and elsewhere, with a whole host of I believe that the biggest threat sinister absurdities like the compulsory to newspapers is nowadays not so sharing of pooled advertisement revenmuch economic as political. It seems to me, in recent Years, ues, restrictions on the style and volume of advertising, newsPrint that the media, and particularly the press, has somehow allowed itself to subsidies, legislation which will compel us to devote equal space and time to become the whipping-boy of our sick all political parties, and so on. and sorry society. There never was Every one of these proposals a time, it seems to me, when we were
has the strangling strings and shackles
of censorship attached, in one form or another. lt is a fact of life that everyone outside the industry knows everything there is to know about what goes on inside it. Politicians and doctors, lawyers and judges alike feel free to pontificate, at the drop of a hat, about our wicked ways. I think ¡t is high time we hit back harder. lt is not enough to hope that things will get better. Because, as Benjamin Franklin once said: "He who lives upon hope will die fasting". There are, of course. those who believe that the biggest threat
to
press
freedom comes not from outside, but
from within. They are split into two schools: those who believe that newspapers are largely staffed by political activists of
the left or of the right, whose interests are in misrepresentation and
disruption, and those who believe that the real danger lies in increasing monopolisation, with unscrupulous and hugely powerful proprietors dictating
is power. The power not to create, but to destroy. To wreck the so-called Capitalist Press, from which none of them is ashamed to collect his bread
and butter. When extremists in the newspaper
talk about worker control they don't mean worker control. They mean their-control. And ¡f they business
ever gain control we can kiss freedom goodbye. Those of you who have not experienced the sinister nature of this
infiltration may well feel that I
am
seeing Reds under the bed. You may feel that these are merely the paranoid ramblings of a peripatetic Pommie Knight. Not so, gentlemen. I do indeed, see Reds under the bed. But it ¡s only because I know they are there. I do not, of course, speak here of those who seek power through the ballot box, and are willing to accept the verdict of the ballot box when the time comes for them to go. They are
editorial policy for their own selfish
my kind of people, at whichever end of the political spectrum they find
ends.
themselves,
Both propositions are worthy of examination. There is no doubt in my mind that the most dangerous voice in politics today is the voice of the lunatic fringe of the left - the ones who are dedicated to the destruction
of society. And since the first rule in the anarchists' handbook is to infiltrate the media, there is no doubt that the press has rather more than its share of them.
They exert, and, I fear, will continue to exert, an influence out of
all proportion to their numerical strength. For that, we who occupy positions of power in the industry have only ourselves to blame. For they are dedicated, tireless and without
scruple in their determination to destroy.
And we are part of the Apathetic Society. We are not only tolerant, which may be commendable, but complacent, indolent, and all too often voiceless in defence of our ideas and
our ideals. The wreckers, in Australia. may be few in number. They may be totally out of step with the bulk of left-wing thinking, or trade union leadership. But they are there, and they are active. And what they are seeking
I speak rather of those who wish to tear down our society and destroy <¡ur institutions without the remotest idea of what is to replace them, There are such people. We ignore them at our peril. Now what about sinister proprietors? It is true that control of the press is concentrated, in Australia and in the United Kingdom, in a handful of companies, and that most newspapers in the United States are owned by a
dozen or so major chains.
I share the general anxiety about excessive monopolisation, and I am sure we are right to be worried. What we need is more newspapers, in more hands rather than fewer. But we have to remember that many newspapers have survived only because they were part of, or were bought by, major chains - often when there were no other bidders. My feeling is that the dangers of monopolisation at this time are more potential than actual.
you know, for a newspaperman who is in the business in rather a substantial way. I have I work,
as
worked for him for many years. And of course he interferes. I cannot quite see why he should be criticised on that ground.
He is the company's Chief Executive, responsible to his board of directors and his company's shareholders for the company's conduct. lt is his 7bb to interfere. But I can tell you that during a long association he has never ordered me to print something I did not wish to print, or to hold out something I wanted to publ ish. The idea that the Chief Executive, in some myster¡ous way, is personally responsible for the day to day editing of dozens of publications on three continents is preposterous. Of course he is involved in policy. Of course he hires and fires editors. But that is simply because he is not the kind of newspaperman to abdicate his proper responsibilities. I see nothing sinister in Mr. Murdoch's close involvement with his
I would like to say a word, if I may, about the much-maligned popular press. Believe me the idea that popular newspapers are not serious newspapers is a travesty.
I promise
you that, in my experience they
are
usually in deadly earnest. And I can tell you from experience that the skills required to explain a complex isue in 10 paragraphs are much more subtle than those required to explain it in 10 columns. All the best popular journalists who have worked for me over the years would have had no diff iculty whatever in doing an
efficient job on a so-called "up-market" newspaper. Sadly, the same is not true tn reverse. So never, ever make the fundamental error of confusing big black type and big pictures-with irresponsi-
busi ness.
bility.
Lord Beaverbrook, of course, freely admitted - indeed, he boasted
Never, ever assume that because a newspaper is unashamedly interested in beer and skittles that it isn't reliable on any other topic. And never assume that what is dull must be important.
that he ran his newspapers for propaganda purposes.
-
I can think of no proprietor who can afford that kind of self-indulgence today. Lord Thomson, on the other hand, boasted that he couldn't care less about the editorial line pursued by the hundreds of newspapers he controlled. He rarely read editorials. Only balance sheets.
We are fortunate that none of the present crop of proprietors shows any sign of moving to either of these extremes. One of the more fatuous and more sinister philosophies I have heard enunciated here in Australia is one to which the distinguished newspaperman John Morgan. Executive Editor of the
Herald and Weekly Times, made reference last year.
It is to the effect that governments should seek to legislate against the so-called excesses of the so-called
The rules by which the best newspapermen live, and the best newspapers are made, do not depend
upon whichever end of the market one happens to find oneself working. On the contrary, that, for me, is not a matter of great importance. What is ¡mportant is that we should continue to take pride in getting it first, and getting it right; that we should at all times strive to pursue the truth and eschew malice; that we should never be ashamed to entertain or afraid, when the ocpasion arises,
to shock.
Such a press deserves to survive. But as someone else once said, a press that takes liberties with language and logic. plays fast and loose with facts, fairness and objectivity, a press which uses words and names to vent spite and invite hatred. which sacrifices
popular press whilst exempting tho6e
impartiality in the interests of sectarian
of the so-called quality "unpopular" press.
passion, does not.
-
i.e.
What arrant nonsense this is. What the media watchers are saying, in effect, is that those newspapers which
reflect their own narrow prejudices OK. Those which are liked by lot of people however, cannot be
are
a
trusted to behave themselves. The proposal is quite unthinkable. A "Íree" Australian - and a fettered Age? Perish the thought.
What we in the newspaper industry need to do is to believe in newspapers. To love them and cherish them and nourish them. To produce them with style and confidence, brevity and wit. lf we do that, we have no cause to worry about survival. Some newspapers will be born, and some will die. But the industry will flourish, and can go forward with pride.
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You
You con therefore hold onio your cosh, os olmost everything is ovoiloble with BARTERCARD: Compulers, copiers, cors, oir trovel, restouronts, holel occomodotions, controctors, ond clothing, lo nome but o few. BARTERCARD keeps your cosh free.
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THE BENEFITS OF BARÍER.
.
.
o Borter Exchonge System octs os your broker, publicizing your offerings ond putting you in touch with other firms who need whot you hove, ond hove whol you need. Through our Trode Brokers, 'wé ore constontly exploring new morkeTs for you.
o Bortei Exchonge Syslem becomes on octive distri'burtor for your products or services through lhe
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internotionol borter bonk's computerized cenlrol cleoring houEe *h¡ch guorontee your trodes. Our cornputer:ized lìsting servìce ond periodic bullelins odverlise you. Borter Exchonge System improves your cosh flow by selling your producl ot prevoiling prices. Your
o Borter
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o Borter Exchonge System generotes new profits since
we increose soles without increosing fixed
expenses.
o Borter Exchonge System provides detoiled slotements eoch monlh showing the purchoses ond soles by your compony for lhe previous month. All occounts ore reconciled on o doily bosis.
octuoJ cosh inveslment is your wholesole or produclion cost. You spend your products ond services ond..keep your cosh.
Spend Your GoodsAnd S ervlGês...
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lf you own o business, write or coll our office todoy to see how THE BARTERCARD ALTERNATIVE con
help your business. lt could be very profitoble.
om interested to receive more informotion
on
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Compony Address Telephone
BARTER EXCHANGE SYSTEM,^, 131 1-13
HANG LUNG CENTER, 2-20 PATERSON STREET, HONG KONG.
TEL: 5-771851-3 TLX:83175 HKBRO HX
SYDNEY LIU WRITES END OF STORY
Sydney Liu did not invent the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
It just sometimes
seemed
that way.
Sydney was the China Watchers' China Watcher. lndeed, it has been suggested that he invented the term. The veteran Newsweek correspondent was 62 when he died recently in Hong Kong. During his career he had been a prolific and accurate reporter of the China scene and was virtually the only newsman to report the onset of the Cultural Revolution. Through the decade when China went mad, Sydney Liu was on top of the story. The Kiangsu-born newsman was educated in Shanghai and in the immediate post-war years he was one of the youngest editors in the city's
vibrant
BOWING TO BOB
ln a tragic accident, he slipped Many Club members lost a valued in the old Cosmo Club one lunchfriend when Old Asian Hand Bob time, breaking his hip. Drummond died recently. For the remaining years of his Bob, aged 74, 'e'ft his native life, he was to be confined to his flat Chicago when a young man and went in Duddell Street, unable to walk. But to Shanghai. a small number of Club members That was in 1933 and apart dropped in for regular sessions of from two or three visits back to the drinks and reminiscences until Bob United States, he never left China aga rn
to move because the building that had been his home for three decades was being torn down. He was determined not to leave Hong Kong and found a place in an old folks home in Kowloon. The very day he moved in, he slipped, broke his hip again and two days later died was forced
,
As a teacher. a language student, a businessman, a charity worker and a manufacturer, Bob led a full and active life in pre-war China. During the war, he was in charge
of
Red Cross distribution of goods in Free China and when peace came, he
in hospital. returned to his home in Peking. A number of Club members paid But in 1950, he had to leave, their last respects to Bob Drummond, and settled in Hong Kong. With friends, he set up a business a gentle gentleman. making copies of old Chinese furniture.
press.
to Hong Kong in 1950, he had $20 in his pocket, no job and few prospects. But wยกth his drive, initiative and ability, he was soon making himself a living doing what he loved - writing news stories and editing the New Life Evening Post As an expert on Chinese military affairs, Sydney was also fascinated by the continuing story developing on the distant northern border where the People's Liberation When he got
Army faces the Russian Red Army. Although he retired officially in 1977, he kept a close eye on developments.
After his sudden death recently, old hands gathered around the main bar and raised their glasses in a toast to a true professional.
t
MOVIN
DINKUM WELCOME AWAITS DOWN UNDER Many stories are told about the Journalists' Club in Sydney. Most of them - even the more incredible ones are true. One of the eternal favourites is the saga of the reporter who lost his wages to a particularly varicious poker machine. Having put his last two shilling piece into the Hungry Tiger he then carefully went through the motions of reserving the machine so nobody else could play it. He then proceeded to the bar, bought himself a meat pie, poured a generous amount of tomato sauce on it and went back to the poker machine. Taking off the handkerchief he had placed over the machine to indicate it was reserved, he then rammed the meat pie down the coin slot roaring: "You've taken everything else so take
well, you hungry bastard." There are also long-told tales of poker machines being hurled out the windows late at night. One saga had to do with the late Kenny lsset, news photographer extraordinary who died a decade ago aged a mere 42. Kenny was lured into the club still clutching five weeks' holiday pay in his hands. He seldom played the machines, but once he was in their grip it was hard to pry him loose. Leaving the club, penniless. in the cold light of dawn, any chance of a vacation long since gone, a pigeon swooped down from the rooftop and unerringly dive bombed the luckless lensman with its morning toilet. "That just about sums up my luck," Kenny remarked
this
as
mournfully.
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Poker machines and the profits made from them have long been the backbone of finances for the Journalists' Club. They have helped pay for the staffing and upkeep of the establishment and provide a heaven for its 4,667 members, of whom 954 are journalists. The club was founded in 1939 following a hiatus in the old Press Club of Sydney which died in a flurry of court actions and bad feeling after a war of words between journalist and ordinary members. Out of this battle, the new journalists' refuge was born and has been going strong ever since. Offering a 24-hour-a-day watering hole, the club provides visitors f rom Hong Kong with somewhere to get a drink after local pubs shut. lt also provides a ready venue for conversation; the Journos has a reputation for friendliness which it likes to demonstrate to overseas visitors.
ln addition to the ice cold ales of Australia, the club stocks a magnificent cellar of Australian wines at a price which makes Hong Kong visitors envious, Any staff member ( and just about any club member) is knowledgable about the vintages and virtues of Australian wine and is only too pleased to help any visitor unfamiliar with the product of Australian grapes to make a choice. lt is hard
to go wrong, The a la carte restaurant on the top floor seats 200 and serves a good selection of quality food at reasonable prices. The beefsteak and burgundy crowd hold frequent meetings there', occasions which anyone suffering from gout would do well to avoid. ln the main bar on the second floor, good, hardy, hearty Aussie food can be eaten at a table or the bar' The Great Australian meat pie, of course, is also promin' ent, although it is not advisable to try to feed it to the poker machines. A comprehensive library provides newspapers from all over Australia, so if you are in Sydney working it is easy to use the Journos as a base to keep in touch with what's happening throughout the continent. There is a snooker room and a cards room and in the latter there have been mammoth poker sessions some of which have been remembered for years. (A recent edition of the Journalists' Club magazine, Copy, tells of one member who was coming to Hong Kong for a brief trip but who, after a card game, is now enjoying a round-theworld trip lasting nine months.) ln addition to snooker, darts and other indoor sports, the club is also noted for arranging such cultural outlngs as fishing trips, so if you are going to be in Sydney it would be worth writing in advance to enquire about these if you are an angler. Of the majority of membBrs who are non-journalists there are a wide varยกety of occupations in the membership. Many noted Australian sportsmen can be seen propping up the bar and the acting profession has long been noted for its presence. The late Chips Rafferty and Peter Finch were both members for many years. Situated close to Sydney's Central Railway Station at 36-40 Chalmers Street, the club is easy to get to. Just tell any taxi driver "The Journos Club" and you"ll find a warm Australian welcome.
Many Club members were irate over what they thought they heard over Radio Television Hongkong a few weeks ago. The cause of the anger was the reportage of a speech by the Secretary for Home Affairs, Denis Bray, who was speaking to the Legislative Council about freedom of the press. Several members mistook the report to say that Bray, Hongkong-born, a fluent Cantonese speaker and a notable friend of the press within Government, had called for restrictions on freedom of the press. Nothing could be further from the truth. To set the record straight, The CORRESPONDENT reproduces the relevant section of his speech.
NEW YEAR REVELS The first New Year to be celebrated in the new premises went off with a bang with standing
room only as Auld Lang Syne marked the end
happy start to
of
1982 and a
1983.
Festivities carried on until the not-so-early hours of the following day and most New Year resolutions were promptly broken.
When Denis Bray took the
floor in the Legislative Council
recently it was in a climate of uncertainty about the future of Hong Kong. The dreaded dale of 1997 loomed large on the horizon and
ill-formed, incorrect and wild speculation
in the
press was add-
ofuncertainty. There had been a debate both in Legco and in the Press
ing fuel to the fires
about the way in which the question of the future of the
Colony had been reported, both
here and overseas. One Member had suggested that reporting of casual comments made overseas had contributed to the sense of unease and it was on this that Bray was commenting
in the following extracts from his address. "I have in the past read with pleasure prominent headlines in Hong Kong Papers which seemed to suggest that during some obscute parliamentarY debate in Westminster the whole house had echoed to cheers for Hong Kong," he said. "I had in fact been present on the occasion in an almost empty gallery looking at an almost empty chamber.
"Equally, anonymous inter-
views and reports from undisclosed sources about every imaginable option on our future have sometimes been given a prominen-
ce scarcely justified by the significance of the original event. "The emphasis given to such stories is decided by editorial judgement. In Hong Kong this judgement is exercised by the papers' editorial staff.
"If they get it right
will prosper. If they get it often they will get fired.
they
wrong
"While we can urge restraint
from over-dramatization or sationalisation,
senthe Government is
in no position to dictate what emphasis the media should adopt," Bray emphasised.
"Nor I am sure would any Member wish to find himself in a society where the Government was able to do so. "People in the public eye
have a love hate relationship with the media. I'Ve love them when they portray us as wise, far-seeing, considerate and conscientious. We hate them when we are attacked as foolish, short sighted, selfish
and unscrupulous, particularly when we think they have done little or no homework.
"We tend to describe them
responsible when they back our causes: and irresponsible if they as
"Not
cvery one agrees with
"The fact is that neither the reporters nor the reported on are infallible. Assessment of the value of the news media must be based on their long term perfo¡mance day in and day out, on
everything that is said indeed such â variety of views is published that it would require a remarkably dextrous mind to do so -, but the media themselves give a great deal of time and space to almost anyone who has anything to say. "The¡e are ample opportunities to answer back in phone-
Kong is remarkably well served," he maintained.
when we are affronted and satis-
say what we would rather not hear.
their balance in reporting of in programmes on the radio and events, and on the standard of in letters to the editor. their commentary, take all this for grant"By these standards Hong ed. We"We feel righteous indignation
"The best of our news media bear comparison with those anywhere else both for coverage of local events, especially for their coverage of world news,
and for the often high calibre of their commentaries. Ol'course the standard is uneven but I doubt if their abundance and breadth of political sympathy is available to any other community of five
million people.
"Some 45 morning papers and 10 evening papers are published every day. Our radio and television networks bt oadcast 229 news bulletins daily and 423 periodicals are produced here. The
output is enornrous and
appetite
for it
the
secms insatiable.
faction when we are applauded.
"But we seldom pause to reflect that the colour and variety of our news and comment spring
directly from the freedom of a highly competitive press. We do wrong to take this for granted. "There are a gteat maíy
places where such freedom is not
to be found. Hong Kong would be a very much duller and more dangerous and unstable a place without it.
"We may not need to be so dramatic as Voltaire when he said 'I disapprove of what you say,
but I will defend to the death your right to say it.' Just occasionally though it is worth recalling the old man's words."
BIUltt$
A PLEA FOR PROPER
ACCREDITATION
Clare Hollingworth - our own dear Mother Superior, as Richard Hughes called her- started off a new series of professional speqkers at club luncheons on December 10.
ln her typical gusty style she told a packed house two excellent stories behind her greatest scoops and then, on a more serious note, first urged the Hong Kong Government to accredit correspondents officially and scolded (rightly) the Board of the FCC for not providing better library and working facilities for the media in
the new club premises. The idea of accreditation for foreign correspondents is not recommended as some means
of physical
protection for them - in wartime they should be the first to be shot, says Clare (and means it) - but would be a simple measure to ensure that people were really who they purported to be and that facilities and privileges granted the accredited would not be abused or crowded out by crowds of freelances-for-a-day or other
once-
over-l ightl ies.
As far as working facilities in the FCC are concerned, the Board is
working on ideas for improvement
still hoping, of course, that
some generous godfather will donate larger premises and material for an FCC
library (possiltly outside the club where as many people as possible can enjoy it). It was Clare, as most people now know, who tipped off the
British Government in 1939 that World War llrlhad started. The languid Robin (now Lord) Hankey, first secretary at the Brit¡sh Embassy in Warsaw, took some convincing of what she was telling him over an indifferent phone line near a customs post on the Polish-German border.
"Oh, come on old girl", he said, c'an
"l
hardly believe that".
"Well". retorted Clare sharply, "listen to this then, old boy" and, hanging out of the window, thrust the receiver down at the panzers of an armoured division rumbling past the building.
.
ff[[lt]t[$ . ltilllil]tt$ . ffitlilt$ Her second story - of the disappearance of Kim Philby, the Briton who spied for Moscow from the Foreign Office's highest places -
NEW GIS CHIEF
newspapers editors.
from Beirut in 1962 to her masters (The Guardian in Manchester) only to have the story lie around unused for three weeks. When they finally tumbled awkwardly to their
hook comfortably when the wash-up over the Philby affair was conducted later in earnest. Donald Wise
HUGHES AGENCY Former Tourist Association spokesman Wendy Hughes has branched out on her own. She has set up a consultancy designed to provide services in both English and Chinese. Hughes spent 10 years with Japan Air Lines PR Section before
joining the HKTA.
jacuzzi, gymnasium) and
Peter Tsao Kwant-yung (49) has been appointed Director of lnformation Services.
As such, he will be the senior Hong Kong Government official dealing with the press, the man reporters depend on for the official word. Mr. Tsao has been a public servant
for 28 years following
education in his native Shanghai, in Hong Kong and in London. His previous post was Director of lndustry and as Hong Kong Minister in Geneva from 'l 975 to 1977 he dealt with delicate trade negotiations between the Colony and Europe. Mr. Tsao replaces Club member Bob Sun as information supremo. ln turn, Bob replaces another Club member, Nigel Watt, as Commissioner for Television and Films.
Nigel has retired from government after a long and distinguished career and plans to remain in Hong Kong and go into business.
PUBLISHERS' PUBLICATION The Society of Hong Kong Publishers has started putting out ¡ts
own monthly newsletter to keep members abreast
of developments.
Chairman Merle Hinrichs said
in the first issue the Society was offering a $1,000 prize for a compet¡t¡on to design a new logo. Anyone can take part; they need not be members.
One topic which is causing some concern to members is that of postage. Discussions are being held with senior
postal officials about such matters as increases in charges, parcel delivery,
ltil[llllt$ . mïil]lt$
BUBBLY FOR JAVIER
to
encourage
greater use of them.
senses, she
It was not the first time, nor will it be the last, that correspondents in the field have been ignored by their editors. But it was nice for her enthusiast¡c audience to know that Clare did not let her editors off the
.
has been taken to make members aware of the new facilities (sauna,
She filed Kim's disappearance
course).
GET TRIM AND SLIM The Board has decided to offer a free session in the health centre to members and spouses. The move
illustrated the lunacy potential of
led the paper for a whole week with such exclusive details as how a drunken Russian sailor had been picked up by the Lebanese dock police - without his landing pass the morning after his ship had sailed for Odessa (with Kim aboard, of
BT[ltt$' ff[[11]l[$
money orders and favoured rates for pre-sorted mailers.
The regular monthly lunches of the Society attract some interesting talkers from people in many branches of the publ ishing industry. Recently.
the managi ng director of Hymmene Star Far East, Max Norris, addressed them and prophesied far-reaching changes in newspaper trends.
The Society is aimed at promoting and protect¡ng all those associated with the publishing industry in Hong Kong.
"Keep fit, trim and fresh," the Board advises members, advice which may well have come a little too late for some. The health corner is oPen for equal sessions for both men and women but the hours allocated for women members and spouses maY be restricted unless they make more use of the facilities. Regular use of the corner costs $100 a month and $5 a session. Casual users pay $20 a sess¡on and $40 for guests.
ANKLE BITERS' REVENGE
The strict Club rules governing
the presence and behaviour of children on the premises is relaxed
only one day a year. when a band of gallant mothers volunteer to organise the annual Christmas party. The ankle-biters, however. make up for the absence with a vengeance. It takes shattered staff and helpers 364 days to recover. This Christmas was no exception; ¡nto the Club waddled children of all sizes. shapes and descriptions. unified only in the twin desires to get as much food as possible inside them and to plunder Santa's bag of goodies. Wise fathers retreated to the
lower bowels of the building and launched a foray ¡nto the newlyarrived Beaujolais, as they awaited the end of the juvenile revelries.
The party was organised by Wendv Burton.
An old familiar face has reappeared at'the new club. After a year spent battling the effects of a stroke, the incredible lberian, Javier M. Padilla. has returned. Padilla. Far East correspondent
for La Vanguardia of Barcelona, was treated in Hong Kong and America after his illness. With his usual amiable smile, he bore his infliction with customary fort¡tude. Now back in harness in his old Asian stamping grounds, he appears to have weathered the storm with little ill-effect, except that his drinking habits have been somewhat restricted. He now has the occasional glass of wine. The rest of the time, he sips fruit juice. St¡ll, he says philosophically, it could be a hell of a lost worse. Padilla's unique grasp of the English language is well known throughout Asia and it is with great pleasure that The Correspondent awards him the bottle of champagne as prize for his explanation of what he considers the good points of the new premises. 'l like the new Club very much. ln the old one. I always met forelgn correspondents who made me speak English and ¡t was a drag. ln this Club, the nit-p¡ckers of the beautiful language of Gibraltar, have disappeared. They may be lost in some corner of the bar, in the sauna or bicycling. Now they don't have time for jokes! Besides. only Richard Hughes, the Londoner, speaks English: the other members are Aussies . . . I also love it, because, at last, my nostalgic dream of having an inexpensive restaurant, has come true; this is what. strangely. Donald Wise promised never to do during his first electoral campaign. Now, it is only restaurants! One, Two, Three, Large and nice restaurants with their corresponding waiters. (Delicious). The workroom and the library are not as sophisticated and snobbish as those of the Tokyo F.C.C. There the poor little reporters have the bad custom of working, and with order and respect, at that. But it is obviously more relaxing to change the typewriter for pool tables and feel at ease in the "Pressroom" as if it were our bachelor summer cottage. Besides in the neur Club lcan even play the trumpet after 6 p.m., the echo of the multitude bounc¡ng off the dome over the bar. helps me
enormously. Congratulations!'
Ïand cheerfully work 15 hours a day. For this, they got $+OO a month and thought themselves fortunate. Sam Lam didn't remain a photographer for long. Soon he was doing the Star's stgp-press columns - eight different selections of news for the four English and four Chinese editions daily. Then he became a reporter, covering a wide variety of assignments, before moving into the news editor's hot chair. By 1979, when Graeme Jenkins was leaving The Star, Sam Lam was handling the company's district papers. He decided to break out on his own. started his own company and began producing a
From photographer to proprietor, Sam Lam proves...
løh
iapl,
district paper for Tsunwan.
4
lJq/4/iW1¿L, +ll!- p6z.¿,
'
It
was a logical move; the industrial town now has a population of about 500,000 and with nearby Kwai Chung is going to top the
The Dive/s Guide to the Philippines
million mark this decade. Other district papers followed until he was putting out seven of them at last count and planning more with They say that nice guys come last, and, alas, the old adage is proved right all too often. So it is with rare delight that I record the commercial success of a reporter-turned-publisher who joined the Club last month. He is Samuel Lam, who through a 15-year career in the Hong Kong newspaper world has been successively
photographer, reporter, translator, rewrite man, news editor, managing editor and editor. Today, the 32-year-old Sam Lam puts out seven district newspapers, owns a high-quality printing press and design house and looks to expansion in the future. All this prosperity is a very different story from those that Sam Lam and I used to chase on the streets at the tail-end of the Cultural Revolution. He was a photographer on The Star where I was a reporter. Under the iron editorship of Graeme Jenkins, The Star was in the
happening in China? Who was running things in the Forbidden City? What Red Guard faction held the reins of power in Canton? What was the next planned move by the rioters and bombers who were attempting to hold
Hong Kong
ransom?
graphers.
As well as taking pictures, the lensmen also had to be capable sprinters; The Star was the scourge of the troublemakers and frequently
mob. The crowd would then desist from stoning policemen or threatening workers and set off in pursuit of the
Star men. Sam Lam kept in front of them, however. But he was not quick enough off the mark one day outside Fanling Court where a terrorist was up on an attempted murder charge. There was a big group of newsmen at the gates of the court but when a senior policeman came out onto the streets
of course, although in those days the dress of the young ladies was not as revealing as
Sam Lam
WITH 7,107 magnificent islands,
tains the largest collection of superb diving sites of any nation in the world. Here is the
paradise. 128
Although each individual paper is small. the total circulation is in excess of 200,000 and with distribution handled through such agencies as mutual aid committees and Kaifongs, it goes to the people who matter in
-
cities. ahead
Other people see a big future for Sam Lam.
"In
of ø dailY newsPaPer there are no yesterdøys. By the time a the life
your way from abundant reefs and drop offs to cave dives and wrecks. Dives are
-
keyed
fires this great c¡tcndian effort."
Extract from the Times of London in the first edition to appear when the paper came out after one of its periodic disappearances caused by a strike. Can anyone explain what
it
to
maps, and symbols tell you
whether a e boat is required, reouired. quality oualitv of marine whether life, current warnings depth, etc. But diving. travel g
the
Ph
useful phrases. Added to, this are chapters on marine life; diving medicine, underwater photography, metric tables and emergency ptlotography, -metric 1EXT o D¡VE gpERATSR & HOTEL information. All attractively packaged in a rineóronV . MEIRTC D|RECToRY rvln'ild CONVERSToN designC'O¡lv¡iéioï rugged, laminated hardbound book der 0HARTS o FjRST AtD cUtDE ed to fit into your suitcase or dive bag.
.
r-------I ltrl
-----><1
To: llnicnrn nmks Ltd., 6ü 6lh floor, fmr 224 22Â Wcstands wnrll¡nd. ß0åd, Rmrl 0uarry oilâd Bay, Râv T0: Unicorn B00ks Hong Kong. Tol: 5-636251
I
æse! Send me a copy 0f Tho Divor's Güide 1ft0 Ptilippinos. lf not delighted, I understand return it atter 10 davs and you will refund in lull.
morning.paper reaches its readers todøy
is ølready yesterdaY; tomorrow has become today; yesterday is mere history' It is the inspiration of tomorrow which
'.
The authors tell you (and show you) where to go to get the best diving and have selected 153 varied dives to start you on
ections.
A photographer held up his hand; and was promptly arrested for taking photographs in the vicinity of a court. Jenkins called in top legal brains to defend the case.
with colour PfrStffiiï?* ur,"lir9'.î& å?i
vacat¡on whether back-tcnature cottage on a deserted beach.
every community. The papers played a big part in the recent District Board elections and Sam Lam intends them to extend this role in the next Urban Council el
and
crystahlear waters, the Philippines con-
larger papers.
The young tycoon sees a big future ahead for small papers in big
conclusion. People thought they were lucky in those days to break into newspapers as a photographer. They had to provide their own cameras (only Nikons and Canons were acceptable) and be able to develop their own film
David Smith, MichaelWestlake, PorfirioCastaneda
the aim of blanketing Hong Kong with local biweekly publications that print all the purely local news and gossip that is too fine for the mills of the
he only asked who represented l/re Star.
About the same time, Sam Lam was out on the streets when he was assaulted on the job. Once again, the fiery Jenkins called in top lawyers to press the case to a satisfactory
1960s a very different sort of publication to what it is today. There were still girlie pictures,
it is today. The main stress of the paper, however, was on' politics. What was
to
To get the answer to the last question, Jenkins sent out onto the streets a band of talented photo"
called for execution for bombers. This led to many incidents where our colleagues of the leftwing press would obl igingly identify a Star team to the
Ualu,ie Arâ[ø,u
Vateile Taylot tnternationatlf known diver, Íitnmaket and consetvat¡onist in het Forcwoñ to
I prefer to pay as follows:
I |.am (US$
5 andlins)
or its
¡
By Visa Card Card No.:
Expires:
means? Signature:
Book sent surface mail from Hong Kong
-
overssas, allow 23 weeks.
-!
---
AIRWAVES
JUST JOINED
ENTREPRENEUR
Correspondents: Agnes Lin Trade Media Ltd.
R. N. Bilkey Hirsch Bedner & Associate
Teresa Ma
Alan Wells
Far Eastern Economic Review Hidethosh
Journalists:
i Fujisawa
NHK, Japan Broadcasting Samuel Lam Newtown Newspapers N. B. Kitchell South China Morning Post
Lindy Course South China Morning Post Felicity Ann Bates
Associates:
Castanet Ltd.
Jeffrey Evans Evans Comput¡ng Ltd. Christopher young
Barrister R. W. Herbst
North Carolina National Bank Frederick Sedgwick & Wireless Ltd.
Communications Management Tsong Zung Chang China Guides
Cable
Matthew K. M. Chui
(HK) Ltd.
Algemene Bank Nederland G. J. B. Elsom Concorde Air'-Sea Services Ltd. Kevin Peterson Concorde Air-Sea Services Ltd.
D. C. Bray Popular talk-back host Barry Kirkham has rejoined the Club. The man who fields all sorts of questions on the Radio Television Hong Kong morning Open Line programme fields very different sorts of problems in his other role as head of Global Village Communications, the diversified media research consultancy company. Kirkham, an Englishman, has been in Hong Kong for seven years. He is married to prominent public relations figure Angela Block of Angela Block Associates.
Deacons F. H. Seebohm
Secretary For Home Affairs James Farquhar
HK Gov't
J. R. Strachan Royal HK Police
Gottfried A. Thoma R.
J. Reynolds Tobacco
Eric Smulders Friesland lnvestment Ltd.
William D. Stone Barrister
J. H. Van Dorp Amsterdam-Rotte rdam Bank N. V. Rita De Bruyne Belgian Consulate General
YOUCANDEPEND
ON USI
WORDSMITH
Got a story
to tell? Tell ¡t to
us.
Write to the
Editor, The Correspondent.
New member Jane Bates runs
word processing company based in Causeway Bay and cíaims she can produce word-perfect personal ised letters and a wide range of other printed material on your own letter-
a
head at short notice. Husband Arthur is the Far East representat¡ve of a German manufacturer which specialises in producing spare parts for military vehicles.
TheSwireGrouP
PHOTOAGENCY