What Are the Implications of the Military Coup in Myanmar?
Clockwise from top left: Shibani Mahtani, Manny Maung, Wai Wai Nu, Ali Fowle
In a pre-dawn operation on February 1, Myanmar’s military moved to take control of the government, detaining civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other elected officials in a coup. The scale of the detentions has grown to more than 400 people as the military tries to keep a lid on mass protests and a growing civil disobedience movement aimed at undermining their illegitimate hold on power. In a country already scarred by memories of brutal crackdowns in 1988 and 2007, soldiers and police are using increasing force against protesters to cement the junta’s grip on power.
Where does Myanmar go from here, and what does a return to military rule mean for its myriad of ethnic minorities, including Rohingya Muslims inside and outside the country? The FCC hosted a discussion on this topic with Ai Fowle, Manny Maung and Wai Wai Nu.
Watch the full event:
Panel: Freedom of Speech Should Be Limited in Some Circumstances
Clockwise from top left: FCC First Vice President Eric Wishart, Alejandro Reyes, Craig Silverman, Maria Ressa
Freedom of expression has its limits when it comes to spreading falsehoods and promoting real-world violence, a panel of experts including Maria Ressa, Craig Silverman and Alejandro Reyes said on Tuesday night. Participating in a virtual discussion which was moderated by FCC First Vice President Eric Wishart, the panelists agreed that social media platforms have the right to ban users based on their online activity.
“It is definitely not an infringement on freedom of speech,” said Ressa, the CEO and president of Rappler.com. “We have to think about this as, ‘Here’s the public sphere and what are the guidelines?’ so that you can exchange ideas and actually talk instead of having influence operations or hate, disinformation and conspiracy theories thrown at you.”
“There’s no question that they should have the ability to remove people from their platforms, they should have policies” said Silverman, the media editor of BuzzFeed News and author of the Verification Handbook. “But at the same time, are they enforcing these things evenly, and are they even able to enforce them?”
He explained that platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have a spotty track record when it comes to policy enforcement, which can lead to violent events like the U.S. Capitol insurrection.
Reyes, a visiting associate professor at the Asia Global Institute, agreed that platforms have the right to remove users as they see fit but raised concerns about governments pressuring social media companies to take these steps.
“Where we should be concerned is really the kind of situation that Maria faces in the Philippines, where you have a constitutional authoritarian system where ambiguity reigns and there’s weaponisation of laws and social media to silence people who want to speak truth to power,” he said.
Given that so-called fake news laws and tech companies’ internal policies have failed to control the rise of disinformation, extremism and violence, the panelists agreed that new solutions to these problems are urgently needed.
“For me the first step is: please stop the virus of lies that come into our information ecosystem,” said Ressa, “and that’s got to be done through legislation.”
With research showing that lies tinted with anger and hate tend to spread faster than facts, she argued that social media platforms can be viewed as inherently biased against facts and honest journalism.
Silverman advocated for specific legislative actions from democratic governments. “I think legislating around transparency and behavioural manipulation and setting some guardrails for those things may actually be doable,” he said.
Similarly, Reyes highlighted the importance of governments reviewing how social media platforms profit from spreading disinformation and conspiracy theories.
Still, even if democratic governments rise to the challenge of enacting legislation that makes social media platforms more accountable, that may not be enough to solve the complex problems facing society.
Instead, governments around the world need to think about how to prepare their citizens to navigate an increasingly chaotic information environment and train them to identify reliable information sources.
“That is a long-term project but we need to be investing in it now and testing ways of teaching news literacy,” said Silverman. “That would certainly reduce the amount and spread of false and misleading information.”
Given the abundance of information sources and the ease of spreading it via social networks, Silverman argued that personal responsibility is at an all-time high.
“That is a big thing everyone needs to understand: your attention is valuable and the way you spend it, particularly on these platforms, helps to determine what spreads and what doesn’t, so we all have a role.”
Watch the full discussion:
2020 in Review: Looking Back at Our Guest Speaker Events
In nearly every regard, 2020 was a rather strange and unusual year. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and various rounds of government restrictions, one of the biggest changes at The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Hong Kong was a significant decrease in the number of club lunches featuring guest speakers we were able to host compared to previous years. (And the introduction of Zoom events!)
Still, when it was safe to do so (and when government restrictions allowed for it), the FCC managed to welcome a variety of notable guests throughout the year. Here’s a look back at the lineup of speakers we hosted in 2020.
January 9: Professor Niall Ferguson
We kicked off the year by hosting Professor Niall Ferguson, an accomplished author, historian and public intellectual, to discuss a wide variety of topics. Predictions he made included the likelihood of a naval conflict between China and the United States, and that Boris Johnson will still be Britain’s prime minister in 2025.
January 14: District Council Elections Panel
In the aftermath of Hong Kong’s November 2019 district council elections, we invited Lo Kin-hei, Derek Yuen and Christine Fong to discuss the city’s political future. The three panelists agreed that Hongkongers would “come out and strike again” to show their dissatisfaction with the government.
January 21: Nick Frisch
The life and art of Liu Xia, the widow of Chinese dissident and Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, was the subject of Nick Frisch’s talk at the FCC. Frisch first interviewed Liu when he was writing for The New Yorker.
January 22: Policing Hong Kong’s Police Panel
In response to widespread dissatisfaction with the Hong Kong Police Force, we invited Dr. Lawrence Ho, Clement Lai and Doriane Lau to discuss how public trust could be rebuilt. The panelists agreed that significant changes needed to be made to policing in Hong Kong.
February 20: Rebuilding Hong Kong Panel
Rebuilding Hong Kong in the aftermath of the protests was the subject of a panel discussion featuring Anson Chan and Dr. Priscilla Leung. The need for a new Chief Executive as well as an independent inquiry into the protests were both proposed as ways to help the city move forward.
February 26: COVID-19 Panel
Our first COVID-focused event of the year was a panel discussion featuring Professor Keiji Fukuda, Dr. Arisina Ma, Elizabeth Cheung and Odile Thiang. The panelists discussed the mental and physical challenges facing Hong Kong in the early months of the pandemic.
March 18: Matthew Marsh
With the motor racing season delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic, we welcomed Formula 1 analyst and Fox Sports Asia presenter Matthew Marsh to the club. The former professional racing driver gave insights into the personalities of some of the world’s top Formula One drivers and shared anecdotes from the press pit.
July 7: National Security Law/Press Freedom Panel
Following a hiatus of several months, we resumed in-person events with this panel discussion of the National Security Law’s effects on Hong Kong journalists, held one week after the law was enacted in Beijing. Panelists Sharron Fast, Antony Dapiran, Keith B. Richburg agreed that journalists needed to be more serious about protecting sources and information given the new law.
July 14: Hong Kong Economy Panel
As the pandemic took its toll on local businesses, we invited business owners Syed Asim Hussain and Douglas Young to speak alongside economist Alicia García Herrero about the city’s economic prospects. The panelists agreed that businesses should be proactive and seize the opportunities brought about by the pandemic.
November 12: Antony Dapiran
After another hiatus from in-person events, the author of City on Fire: The Fight for Hong Kong, Antony Dapiran joined us to discuss the legacy of the 2019 protests. Dapiran also talked about the weakening of the Legislative Council and the deleterious effects of the National Security Law on the rule of law in Hong Kong.
November 19: Jake van der Kamp
Veteran financial columnist Jake van der Kamp, author of The Rise and Fall of the Hang Seng Index, joined us to share his philosophy on investing and talk about his time covering the markets. His main takeaway? Trust yourself, not investment advisers.
December 3: Weijian Shan
PAG CEO and chairman Weijian Shan spoke about his recently published book Money Games: The Inside Story of How American Dealmakers Saved Korea’s Most Iconic Bank. He also discussed how private equity has transformed Asian economies in the past two decades.
2020 in Review: The Year in FCC Zoom Events
Looking back on 2020, it was a year that posed numerous challenges for The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Hong Kong, not least of which was a limited ability to host in-person events. But, like the rest of the world, we adapted to the new normal and found a way to get on with things.
At the FCC, that meant taking our events virtual by turning to Zoom as a way to host guest speakers and panelists including Noam Chomsky, Jiayang Fan, Maria Ressa, John Bolton, Garry Kasparov and many others. While Zoom allowed us to continue planning speaker events in times when social distancing measures prevented them from taking place at the club, it also allowed us to transcend time zones and welcome speakers located all over the world. As a result, you can expect to see plenty more Zoom events happening in 2021.
But first, here’s a look back at the lineup of notable speakers we hosted on Zoom in 2020.
April 29: Ben Cowling
Our first Zoom event of the year featured Professor Ben Cowling, who joined us to discuss Hong Kong’s battle with COVID-19.
May 6: Press Freedom Panel
The pandemic and its effects on press freedom was the focus of this panel discussion featuring Maria Ressa, Hélène Franchineau and Mohammed Hanif.
May 20: The Rt. Hon Lord Patten of Barnes CH
Hong Kong’s last governor joined us to discuss the city’s future in the midst of sweeping changes and increased intervention from the Chinese government.
June 11: Clifford Stott
Professor Clifford Stott, a protest policing expert, explained why he resigned from an international panel appointed by Hong Kong’s police complaints body to investigate the policing of last year’s protests.
June 18: George Floyd Protests Panel
As the George Floyd protests swept across the United States, we invited Amelia Brace and Joel Simon to discuss the threats facing journalists covering the movement.
July 9: Maria Ressa and Caoilfhionn Gallagher
The Rappler CEO and press freedom advocate spoke alongside her international human rights lawyer about Ressa’s conviction in the Philippines on cyber libel charges.
July 15: John Bolton
The day after President Trump signed an executive order ending Hong Kong’s preferential trade treatment, former U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton said that Hong Kong still enjoyed broad support in the U.S. even as the city’s freedoms were being eroded.
July 20: Jeffrey Sachs
Professor Jeffrey Sachs, an economist and author, warned that improving relations between the U.S. and China was crucial for maintaining global stability in the coming years.
July 30: COVID-19 Infodemic Panel
The rise of disinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic was the focus of this panel discussion featuring Kristin Urquiza, Claire Wardel and Alice Budisatrijo.
August 4: Suzanne Nossel
The CEO of PEN America, a nonprofit organisation which defends free expression, spoke about how democracy and freedom are in decline around the world.
August 7: Noam Chomsky
Renowned intellectual Noam Chomsky spoke about the potentially disastrous consequences of relations between the U.S. and China further deteriorating.
August 10: Kishore Mahbubani
The author and Asia scholar said it would be a “huge mistake” for China to eradicate Hong Kong’s unique characteristics.
August 12: Sino-American Relations Panel
Relations between the U.S. and China was the topic of this panel discussion featuring Lingling Wei, Mary E. Gallagher and Bonnie Glaser, who agreed that a Biden presidency could improve the situation.
The former top U.S. military official claimed that Taiwan’s political status was the greatest threat to the already tense relationship between China and the U.S.
September 8: Brian Stetler
The host of CNN’s Reliable Sources warned that Fox News could cause “enormous damage” on election night in the United States.
The author of a biography of Indonesian president Joko Widodo said that Widodo’s “lack of leadership” had caused Indonesia’s struggle with containing COVID-19.
October 5: China & Hollywood Panel
China’s influence on Hollywood was discussed by panelists James Tager, Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian and Rebecca Davis, who said that the greed of America’s film industry was leading to increased self-censorship in a bid to reach Chinese audiences.
October 7: Rana Mitter
The author and China scholar spoke at length about how “wolf warrior” diplomacy has hurt the PRC’s global reputation.
Weeks before the U.S. presidential elections, panelists Craig Silverman, Elyse Samuels and Thomas Kent agreed that election-related disinformation had reached an all-time high.
October 20: Jiayang Fan
A staff writer at The New Yorker, Jiayang Fan spoke to us about her blockbuster cover story “How My Mother and I Became Chinese Propaganda.”
October 22: The Future of COVID-19 Panel (Dr. Sarah Borwein, Prof. Ivan Hung, Prof. John Nicholls)
With winter on the horizon, we invited Dr. Sarah Borwein, Professor Ivan Hung and Professor John Nicholls to share their predictions for the future of the coronavirus pandemic in Hong Kong and around the world.
November 20: The Biden Administration & China Panel
Discussing the upcoming Biden administration’s approach to China, panelists Bonnie Glaser and Tom Orlik said it would be characterised by competition and cooperation.
November 23: Mara Hvistendahl
The investigative reporter discussed her second book, The Scientist and the Spy, which recounts the story of a Chinese-born scientist who was caught trying to steal genetically modified corn seeds from a field in Iowa.
2020 in Review: Our Most Popular Guest Speakers on YouTube
Between in-person events at the club and virtual events on Zoom, we hosted dozens of guest speakers in 2020. In case you didn’t already know, we post videos of all guest speaker events on the FCC HK YouTube channel, which allows us to reach audiences far beyond Hong Kong and our members roster.
Unsurprisingly, some of our events have gained a lot of traction on YouTube, and these are the most popular ones from 2020.
#1: Noam Chomsky
Views: 151,000 and counting
#2: Niall Ferguson
Views: 25,000 and counting
#3: Admiral Bill Owens
Views: 21,000 and counting
#4: Kishore Mahbubani
Views: 20,000 and counting
#5: The Rt. Hon Lord Patten of Barnes CH
Views: 8,900 and counting
#6: John Bolton
Views: 5,000 and counting
#7: Anson Chan & Priscilla Leung
Views: 4,600 and counting
#8: Joseph Stiglitz
Views: 3,100 and counting
Governments, Police Should Not Decide Who Is a Journalist: Alan Rusbridger
Amateur reporters can play as vital a role in news gathering as trained professionals and it is not up to governments or the police to decide who is a journalist, said former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger in an FCC Zoom discussion moderated by FCC first vice president Eric Wishart.
While there are numerous examples of amateur journalists contributing valuable reporting, including during the Hong Kong protests, Rusbridger said this new reality has created a “world of chaotic information” in which the average person has access to more information than ever before and yet doesn’t know which sources to trust.
One response to this phenomenon in Hong Kong was the introduction by the police of new guidelines about who they would recognise as a journalist.
“The moment you’ve got anything that looks like a government register, it becomes very problematic,” Rusbridger said.
He added that police should not be involved in the discussion about who is and who isn’t a real journalist: “It’s an impossible thing and we shouldn’t ask the police to make those decisions.”
Rather than governments and police forces deciding who is a journalist, Rusbridger said it was a job for the media industry.
“It’s probably [better] for the industry itself to develop norms and say, ‘This person we recognise as performing the functions of a journalist’ than for the state to do it,” he said. “Both are problematic, but I think it’s better for the industry itself.”
He gave the example of the killing of George Floyd by a policeman in Minneapolis in May, one of the biggest stories of the year.
“We know about that because somebody filmed it, but I don’t think it was a journalist,” said Rusbridger. “It was just somebody standing on the street who did what journalists do. Repeatedly now, we know what we know because people are doing acts of journalism, and that’s a good thing I think we would all agree. But of course that doesn’t necessarily make you a journalist.”
He also spoke about his former collaborator, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and whether or not he could be considered a journalist.
“In the stuff we did together, we were both in joint pursuit of journalism,” he said. “But he would be the first to admit that he was also a political activist and a whistleblower, he was an entrepreneur and a troublemaker.”
According to Rusbridger, in spite of Assange’s complicated and often conflicting identities, he should be defended by journalists: “I think as journalists we should say, ‘Well, in as much as he’s being accused of journalism, we should defend him for that, because if he goes down for acts of journalism, that’s something that will affect all of us.’”
According to Rusbridger, traditional media have been confronted with an erosion in trust, and it will not be easy to regain.
“I don’t think there’s been an awakening among journalists about how they’re going to have to change their behaviour in order to win the position of trust I think we want”, he said.
This was one of the reasons he wrote News and How to Use It, noting that studies show that people are increasingly confused and distrustful of news: “We shouldn’t underestimate the size of the trust mountain that we have to climb.”
Given the proliferation of information outlets and digital platforms, Rusbridger recommended employing certain techniques, such as adding more links and other resources, avoiding unattributable sources, and using screenshots and interview transcripts to increase transparency. “Those are 21st-century techniques of trust that we’re going to have to learn to live with,” he said.
Similarly, journalists need to avoid partisan politics in order to succeed.
“The best and most necessary journalism is the one that doesn’t fall into the trap of attaching itself to right or left,” he said, “but just says this is where the evidence leads and, by the way, here is the evidence.”
A member of Facebook’s newly formed Oversight Board, an independent advisory group, Rusbridger said he understood why people might be sceptical and see it as little more than a PR exercise.
However, he made clear that several of his fellow board members are openly hostile toward the social media giant and had not been selected to make the company’s life easy. As for the so-called Real Facebook Oversight Board, an international ad-hoc body of activists and academics led by investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr, Rusbridger welcomed their contributions.
“I think we will do different things but we will complement each other,” he said.
Rusbridger, who served as editor of The Guardian from 1995 to 2015, is currently Principal of Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford.
Watch the full video:
In the Era of Cancel Culture, Michael Palin Defends the Role of Comedy
An accomplished actor, writer and traveller, Monty Python star Michael Palin issued a full-throated defence of comedy’s importance as a form of free speech during a Zoom event moderated by club president Jodi Schneider at the FCC.
Asked if there should be any red lines for comedy in the era of “political correctness” and so-called cancel culture, Palin said, “Comedy should be free, it’s an exercise in free speech.”
One of the founding members of legendary comedy troupe Monty Python, Palin added: “It’s almost more important than anything else, comedy, because it allows you, by doing something which is not directly commenting on what’s happening, to make a point in a way which is much more effective than sometimes going head on. I think comedy is perhaps sometimes the best way to say the hardest things.”
Arguing that humour is a way to bring people together, Palin praised it as a balm for the absurdity of life. “Comedy is about the human condition, the human situation, the way we all are,” he said. “If we’re going to take ourselves so seriously that we can’t be laughed at, then I think we’re in real trouble.”
Palin is familiar with the intersection between comedy and controversy. Though the work of Monty Python has been largely celebrated, he recalled that the group received widespread negative feedback on Life of Brian, a 1979 film set in Biblical times that was banned in several countries for being blasphemous. “There were people saying this is just cheap jokes at the expense of people who have religious sensibilities, which it wasn’t at all,” said Palin.
Regardless, Monty Python’s television series and films have remained popular over time, in spite of being produced decades ago. Asked why he thought their work had such an enduring legacy, Palin said, “For a start, Python was never topical. It went really for the absurdity of life, particularly the pretentiousness of human behavior. That hasn’t really changed. I think that’s why Python’s looking at the world and seeing it as a very, very silly place strikes a real chord with the younger generations.”
Between Monty Python’s four series and his later travel programmes, Palin has worked extensively with the BBC, and he acknowledged the critical role the public broadcaster played in launching his career. “I don’t think we would have done Python without the BBC, I don’t think anyone else would have put it on,” said Palin. “At the time, of course, the BBC was all-powerful. There were very few other channels, so the BBC could take risks and take gambles, which it did really with Python.”
Today, however, Palin said things are very different at the BBC, with increased supervision and oversight of programming. After Monty Python was given the green light, “we were left to get on with it, and that just would not happen now,” he said. Nonetheless, he stated that “the BBC is extremely important and does extremely good work,” adding that there are vested interests that don’t want the broadcaster to succeed and constantly pose a threat to its future success.
Palin also acknowledged the role that American broadcaster PBS played in Monty Python’s success, as it began airing episodes in 1974. “We’d all given up hope of it ever going across to the States, and it really caught on amongst the students at various colleges and universities,” said Palin. “They really gave Python a new lease of life.”
Also known as the globetrotting author of several travelogues and the star of numerous travel programmes, Palin has surprisingly enjoyed being stuck in one place over the past year due to recovery from heart surgery and the coronavirus pandemic. “I’ve been quite content with actually doing very little,” he said, adding that he plans to take the vaccine once it’s available.
As for future travel plans, Palin said that Africa and Mongolia are at the top of his list. When asked if he would take a commercial trip into space courtesy of Richard Branson or Elon Musk, he replied: “Absolutely not.”
Watch the full video:
Dealmaker Weijian Shan on Private Equity in Asia and His Historic Bank Takeover
Private equity may play a crucial role in shaping Asian economies now, but that wasn’t always the case said PAG CEO and chairman Weijian Shan during an event at The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Hong Kong. He described private equity in Asia as being in its infancy in 1999, when he served as the chief architect of a deal which saw American firm Newbridge Capital take control of Korea First Bank in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis.
That historic deal is the subject of Shan’s new book Money Games: The Inside Story of How American Dealmakers Saved Korea’s Most Iconic Bank, which the author described as the only book he’s aware of that covers a major private equity deal from start to finish, including its aftermath. Negotiating the takeover of the government-owned bank was no easy task, Shan explained, as Newbridge wanted the government to be responsible for potentially bad loans on the books, while public officials wanted the new investors to assume all the risk. At the same time, the Korean economy was reeling from the financial crisis and subsequent International Monetary Fund bailout.
Having witnessed the ups and downs of the Asian financial crisis, Shan noted how that experience had a direct effect on financial institutions across the region being better suited to weather the 2008 global financial crisis. Similarly, he said, American and European firms are handling the current pandemic-related downturn well because of the lessons they learned in the last crisis.
More than two decades after the Korea First Bank takeover, Shan explained that the private equity market in Asia has matured as capital flows continue to increase and a greater number of firms compete in the buyout, growth capital and venture capital sectors. He also spoke of investors who are desperately seeking new money-making opportunities, and added a word of caution. “I really don’t think private equity is for retail investors,” sad Shan. “It’s by and large a high-risk business.”
This wasn’t Shan’s first time appearing at the FCC; he previously spoke about his book Out of the Gobi: My Story of China and America. With a forward written by Janet Yellin, who is President-elect Joe Biden’s pick for Treasury Secretary, the memoir is a fascinating account of how Shan survived China’s Cultural Revolution and went on to become a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania before embarking on a career in finance.
Watch the full event below:
RTHK One of Many Public Broadcasters Globally Under Pressure: Ex-BBC Head Mark Thompson
With RTHK coming under increasing criticism from the government in recent months, former BBC Director-General and New York Times Co. CEO Mark Thompson spoke about the challenges facing public broadcasters in Hong Kong and around the world in a Zoom interview with The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Hong Kong on Tuesday.
“In countries which don’t really have any big commitment to democracy, and who genuinely believe, or claim to believe, that solidarity and focus on what we all agree on is good – and everything else is not legitimate and valuable but actually is illegitimate and criminal – it’s not surprising that a public broadcaster gets acute pressure from the authorities,” said Thompson. “That seems to be playing out in Hong Kong as it is in so many other countries.”
Commenting on recent troubling developments including the suspension of a satirical programme as well as the arrest of an investigative reporter, Thompson expressed sympathy and solidarity with RTHK. “I’ve been interviewed by them, have colleagues there and regard RTHK as a sister broadcaster,” he said. When you threaten one public broadcaster, you kind of threaten them all in a way. It’s a bit like NATO: an attack on one is an attack on all.”
Reflecting on the history of RTHK, Thompson noted that it had not always exercised the same level of editorial independence that it has in recent years, particularly during the colonial era. “After the handover, clearly RTHK made real efforts to try and be dispassionate and objective in the way it covered, let’s say, last year’s disruptions and the government and the protesters,” said Thompson. “It feels like they’re under more pressure [now].”
Thompson also highlighted the important role that governments should play, or rather should not play, in allowing public broadcasters to operate freely. “It really depends on a group of very powerful people exercising self-restraint” and believing that “it’s in the greater public good that there should be an exchange of ideas, that journalists should be allowed to hold governments to account.” Ultimately, Thompson argued, “If the government doesn’t want it to exist, it won’t exist. In the end, they can switch you off.”
Thompson made clear that the problem isn’t limited to Hong Kong – “this is true of Western liberal democracies, it’s true of controlled societies” – and cited examples including Russia and nations in central and eastern Europe to illustrate his point, as well as his former employer. “The BBC has remained over decades a beacon of independence,” said Thompson, but not without its challenges.
“Winston Churchill hated the BBC and hated the idea of having a public broadcaster who was outside his control,” said Thompson, noting that, in more recent times, the British government has occasionally taken a more hands-on, aggressive approach to the public broadcaster in the form of official enquiries or funding cuts. He pointed to “wounded egos” inside Boris Johnson’s government who felt the broadcaster had been too tough on the Conservatives’ election campaign and threatened retribution. When the people controlling the purse strings threaten public broadcasters, Thompson said, “it’s bad for democracy.”
As for news organisations that aren’t supported by government funds, Thompson said they have their own challenges to face but dismissed the notion that consumers aren’t willing to spend on news subscriptions. “The whole notion that people won’t pay for news is based on a vision of the Internet circa 1999,” said Thompson, who argued that the public’s willingness to pay for different sources of entertainment such as Netflix proves that they are willing to do the same for high-quality news.
Still, he said, there are many financial challenges for newspapers to overcome, both due to the ongoing pandemic as well as long-term trends such as Facebook and Google providing cheap digital advertising solutions that have disrupted business models. Thompson was optimistic about the future, however, saying that “the idea that people don’t want high-quality news is not true” but rather something the owners of news organisations needlessly worry about.
Newspapers and other publications will have to get creative in order to survive, he said, adding that various sources of funding including private donors, philanthropic organisations, and commercial sponsorships could keep smaller newsrooms alive in the future. Even Google and Facebook might come to the rescue: “If they step up to the mark, it’s possible to imagine these huge platforms being a source of funding for these local publications.”
Watch the full interview here:
Investigative Reporter Mara Hvistendahl on Industrial Espionage and U.S.-China Relations
Appearing in a Zoom interview to discuss her second book, The Scientist and the Spy, author Mara Hvistendahl described a reporting process that took her from China to the Midwestern United States and back as she followed an intriguing legal case that reflected the rise of tensions between the world’s two largest economies. The book recounts the story of a Chinese-born scientist who was caught trying to steal genetically modified corn seeds from a field in Iowa, which led to a two-year FBI investigation and the scientist’s imprisonment.
According to Hvistendahl, an investigative reporter at The Intercept, issues related to trade secrets theft were once handled between companies and never focused on individual employees. In recent years, however, she said both the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice have “posed industrial espionage as some sort of existential threat to the United States,” as the government has prosecuted dozens of cases on behalf of large corporations with the supposed aim of “protecting innovation in America.”
“When you dig into what sort of cases are being brought,” said Hvistendahl, “it is these cases that benefit huge corporations in anti-competitive industries.” As a result, she argued, there are valid concerns about the federal resources that are being spent on such cases. For example, the case that is the focus of her book unfolded in multiple states over two years and involved more than 70 FBI agents as well as lengthy court proceedings.
As industrial espionage has become a flashpoint in U.S.-China relations, Hvistendahl’s reporting also found a worrying trend of racial profiling, with several Chinese scientists being arrested only to later be found innocent. The author said this could be traced back to a secret U.S. government surveillance program that monitored Chinese citizens in the 1960s and 1970s, which she uncovered in the process of doing research for her book.
Reflecting on the process of combining investigative and narrative journalism to weave a thrilling story told from multiple perspectives, Hvistendahl highlighted the merits of painstaking research and rigorous reporting. “This is a complex story that I would not have been able to portray if I had relied only on the court documents and not looked more into the people behind the story,” she said.
Clockwise from top left: Shibani Mahtani, Manny Maung, Wai Wai Nu, Ali Fowle
