SCMP becomes the mouth-piece of China

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

For lovers of a free press, one of the most refreshing things about arriving in Hong Kong after a prolonged stay on the mainland was the former British colony’s delightfully vibrant English-language newspaper culture. There were the Asian editions of the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times, as well as the international New York Times and papers from Europe.

And then there was the South China Morning Post, the hometown English-language paper of Asia. It combined solid analysis of China and the region with gritty, hard-nosed reporting on Hong Kong itself. It was a great paper befitting a great world city, and Hong Kong was the better for it.

But now the SCMP has been snapped up by Jack Ma, the billionaire owner of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, for a reported $266-million. Like Jeff Bezos, who bought the venerable Washington Post in 2013 with plans to expand the paper’s reach and turn it into a digital powerhouse, Mr. Ma has some noble goals for making the 112-year-old newspaper a global go-to destination for China-watchers. But he also wants to use it to counter what one Alibaba executive feels is the ideologically tainted coverage of the People’s Republic. In short, Alibaba wants to grow the SCMP while shrinking criticism of China’s government. Can it do both things simultaneously?

In Mr. Ma’s defence, billionaires of all nationalities gravitate toward newspaper ownership. And there is a slim chance that Mr. Ma’s beneficent injection of cash will make the SCMP more internationally relevant.

But it is far more likely that Mr. Ma’s investment will be a kiss of death, one that could sink the SCMP’s reputation for good. Long admired for coverage of China, the SCMP has become less relevant in recent years as alternate sources of China news proliferated. Under the current editor, Wang Xiangwei, SCMP staff have complained of censorship, many journalists have left the paper and there have been public protests accusing Mr. Wang – who was born in mainland China – of censoring coverage of Chinese dissidents to appease Beijing. A long-standing paywall – enabled in part by Hong Kong’s wealthy expatriates and a previous dearth of English-language competition in local news – has in recent years made the paper less relevant to younger, digitally savvy audiences.

Mr. Ma wants to tear down the paywall and make the paper more mobile-friendly. That, by itself, may make the SCMP more widely read. But the moves come in a drastically changed media environment. There is tons of vividly reported, accurate and trustworthy news about China online, and many Western news organizations have dramatically increased their coverage of, and staffing in, mainland China in recent years.

At the same time, how can readers trust an Alibaba-owned SCMP? Alibaba’s owner has courted China’s leaders and has benefited from their protectionist policies that hive off China’s technology, social media and e-commerce space from Western competition. Those same leaders direct censors to block any critical coverage of China, block news websites that feature controversial stories (including, at times, those by the SCMP) and lock away Chinese journalists or writers who voice dissent.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Mr. Ma’s move will be a blow to Hong Kong’s free press, which remains one of the core distinguishing features between Hong Kong and the mainland, particularly as many of the city’s residents (its tycoons notwithstanding) resist closer ties with Beijing. Other critical English-language news outlets, such as the digital startup Hong Kong Free Press, have complained that they face frequent cyberattacks. Many other news sites are explicitly blocked by Beijing’s censors.

It is impossible – both logically and morally – to divorce Mr. Ma’s purchase of the SCMP and his attempt to shape the grand narrative surrounding China’s rise from this broader political context, and it is even possible officials in Beijing knew of his plans in advance, if not tacitly supported his effort to buy the SCMP.

In the SCMP, Alibaba’s executive vice-chairman Joseph Tsai explained the new ownership will guarantee editorial freedoms. We will see about that. He also mused that Western journalists “may not agree with the system of governance in China and that taints their … coverage.” There is a sophisticated argument to make about political systems having their respective strengths and weaknesses, but his comments ring hollow coming from a Chinese corporation that receives praise from China’s rulers.

The worst one could say about the acquisition, though, is that it just sort of looks like a bad deal – interesting only for the mystique. China already has pro-Beijing English-language newspapers with digital presences, such as China Daily or Global Times. Neither of them are taken seriously precisely because they cannot be trusted. And nowhere is a revamped SCMP less likely to be trusted than in Hong Kong, which is forever wary of Beijing’s creeping influence.

Of course, Mr. Ma is smart enough to know all of this. His involvement may bleed the SCMP’s remaining audience in Hong Kong, while doing little to gain new digital readership. Perhaps that is what the savvy Mr. Ma is up to, and it would certainly look less malevolent to outsiders than simply buying it and shutting it down, which is likely what Chinese leaders would prefer. It doesn’t really matter. Beijing wins regardless.


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