'Advocating for press freedom is not a crime', Benedict Rogers

It's baffling that a newspaper which campaigns for Jimmy Lai would be spooked by its journalist chairing a Hong Kong press body

Great media organizations in the free world — The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal,The Times, The Telegraph, The Financial Times,The Guardian, Le Monde, The Sydney Morning Herald, or The Asahi Shimbun — do not only exist to report the news.

Their editorial pages help inform opinion among policymakers and business leaders, and what they choose to put on their front pages helps shape agendas. For these reasons, such great publications have a responsibility to be not only bastions but also guardians of press freedom.

The way The Wall Street Journal has passionately campaigned for its courageous reporter jailed in Russia, Evan Gerschkovich, has been exemplary. The newspaper has done exactly what it should to stand by its employee and expose the absolutely outrageous injustice he is suffering.

On March 29, marking a year in which Gerschkovich had been in a Russian jail, the front page of the newspaper was left three-quarters empty, with the headline: “His Story Should Be Here.”

And when he was sentenced last week to 16 years in Vladimir Putin’s prisons, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker, led the charge in condemning this appalling travesty of justice — as she should. “It’s a dark day for press freedom,” she said — and she was absolutely right.

But if it is so concerned about press freedom — as one would expect it to be — why did The Wall Street Journal fire Selina Cheng, a reporter from its Hong Kong bureau, allegedly because she had been elected chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA), an embattled group that exists to try to defend whatever few fragments of press freedom remain in the city?

Cheng claims that when editors at the newspaper found out she was running to be the HKJA’s chairperson, she was instructed by her supervisor to withdraw from the election and told to resign from the HKJA’s board — which she has served on since 2021.

She was told the role would be “incompatible” with her job covering China’s automobile and energy sectors for the newspaper.

Furthermore, Cheng claims the company told her that employees of The Wall Street Journal should not be seen as advocating for press freedom “in a place like Hong Kong,” even though they “can in Western countries where it is already established.”

But what is the point of only defending press freedom where it is well-established, and not in cities like Hong Kong where it is under fire and in the process of being dismantled? Surely it is on the frontlines that we should defend press freedom most.

It seems The Wall Street Journal’s management — located in safety in New York and other Western capitals — is fearful. “It is obvious to me that the fear and unease the press in Hong Kong have been facing for years now has equally affected the Journal’s management, even though they are far away and in different continents,” Cheng said.

Of course, it is understandable for journalists in Hong Kong to be afraid — and to exercise caution. Hong Kong’s local independent and pro-democracy media has been almost entirely shut down, following the forced closure of the largest domestic media outlets such as the Apple Daily, founded by pro-democracy entrepreneur Jimmy Lai who is now in prison and on trial under the National Security Law, and Stand News, whose editors were arrested and prosecuted for “sedition.”

The crackdown in Hong Kong under the draconian National Security Law imposed by Beijing in 2020, and the additional domestic security law, known as Article 23, introduced this year, has almost destroyed press freedom as I wrote two years ago.

But that is precisely why the foreign media in Hong Kong should step up their defense of press freedom and protection of journalists, not back down, because they are the only voices left.

The Wall Street Journal should not be doing the Chinese Communist Party’s dirty work for it — on the contrary, it should be the final bulwark resisting repression.

Cheng’s sacking has drawn international condemnation. Human Rights Watch, the Georgetown Center for Asian Law, the Asia chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China, Reporters Without Borders, the News Guild, and of course the HKJA have all issued statements.

Even the Foreign Correspondents Club (FCC) of Hong Kong — which has not exactly been heroic in recent years — said it was “deeply concerned.”

“If the editors of the Journal advocate for reporters’ rights to do their jobs without fear and intimidation in Russia, they should do the same in Hong Kong. We urge The Wall Street Journal and all news organizations to respect reporters’ rights to join press clubs and to advocate for press freedom without the fear of punitive action from their own newsrooms,” it said.

Absolutely spot-on — and I say that as someone who was an active FCC member when I worked as a journalist in Hong Kong 25 years ago.

The pressure on The Wall Street Journal is not going to go away. The staff union at its parent company has issued a petition calling for Cheng’s reinstatement, and there will likely be legal proceedings. This was a stupid fight for a great newspaper to pick, especially when the world’s sympathies are with it over the imprisonment of its brave journalist in Russia.

Moreover, in its editorial pages The Wall Street Journal has often taken a robust line on human rights in China and has been especially consistent in publishing articles about the injustice of Jimmy Lai’s imprisonment.

I have contributed dozens of opinion editorials to the newspaper over the years, many of which would have infuriated Beijing and its quislings in Hong Kong. Until Cheng’s case, I’d have said “I love The Wall Street Journal because I write for it.”

I still love it as a great newspaper, and it is because I love it that I must call it out. It baffles me that a newspaper that campaigns for Jimmy Lai and has published voices like mine would be spooked by a Hong Kong journalist chairing a press freedom body. It makes no sense.

The management of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones should do the right, decent, moral but also common-sense thing, however awkward it is, and put their hands up and admit they made a mistake.

No person gets it right all the time, and a newspaper’s senior management are people. So, they should say they got it wrong, they support press freedom everywhere, all the time, no exceptions, no hypocrisies and no inconsistencies — and give Selina Cheng back her job.

The article was published by UCA News on 25 July 2024.