Source: Ming Pao Author: Su Keji

The Hong Kong Reporter Association announced the results of the 2018 Hong Kong Press Freedom Index survey the day before yesterday. The public score was 45, which is a new low in the past six years.As shown in Figure 1, this is an obvious decline after the decline in 2015.

The Hong Kong Press Freedom Index began in 2013. There are 10 components of this index. The investigating objects include public people and journalists.The latest survey visited 1003 citizens and 535 journalists.

Three factors have deteriorated public indexes significantly

Why did the public index a significant decline in 2018?It turned out that three of the factors were worse, including the media's supervision function, the laws of guarantee the laws interviewed by reporters, and the degree of diversification of the media position.The remaining project factors that have no obvious changes include the central government, the SAR Government, the Hong Kong Consortium, the media owner of the media, the self -examination of the media, the safety of the reporter's interview, and the easy level of information.

Inquiry and inquiring the subject of the interviewees mainly considers what factors are considering.In the public investigation section, the first three factors in 2018 were the central government, self -examination, interview security; in 2017, the first three factors were self -examination, supervision effects, and interview security.It can be seen that the public believes that the self -examination and interview security of the media is a more important factor, but the main focus in 2018 is in the central government.

There is a question in the questionnaire: Compared to a year ago, do you think the overall situation of Hong Kong's freedom of pressing the press is improved, retreating, or hasn't it changed?The answer can provide another angle to observe the freedom of the press.In the public response, it was believed that the improvement accounted for about half, and nearly 40 % of the unchanged, indicating about 50 % of the backward.

If the ratio of the answer to the improvement is reduced, the ratio of changes can be reached.Taking the public response in 2018 as an example, the net value is -48, and the number is lower than the -34 in 2017. It shows that the public feels that the situation is worse than before, and it is the most negative value over the years.Figure 2 shows that the data and changes of the net worth over the past 5 years are closer to -100, which means that the situation is worse.

Evaluate press freedom journalists is more pessimistic

The above results come from the public investigation part, and the answers provided by journalists are different.Last year, the reporter's score of the Press Freedom Index was 0.6 slightly higher than the previous year, but this change is not significant statistically.Figure 1 shows that the score in 2018 is 40.9, which is significantly lower than the public score.In fact, since 2013, journalists' scores for the freedom of press are at a low level, and the lowest is 2015.

When journalists considering the importance of affecting different factors of press freedom, the results of the investigation in recent years have not changed. Self -examination has always been the primary factor. The second is the central government, and then the SAR government and the media owner.The importance of other factors is relatively low.

Compared with the situation a year ago, journalists evaluated the views of the freedom of press on press, which is similar to the public trend. Figure 2 shows that journalists have even more pessimistic evaluation of improvement / backstur net worth.The evaluation in 2018 is significantly worse than the previous year, but the net value is still not the lowest. They feel that the lowest valley is in 2014.

More than 90 % of the industry believes that 5 things will damage the freedom of the press

In the questionnaire of the journalist, he asked five incidents last year that might damage the freedom of the press.These incidents include: Ma Kai's work visa of Vice Chairman of Foreign Press Conference has not been renewed, the Hong Kong National Party is designated as an illegal organization, and multiple media have been accused of deleting reports on the remarks of central officials under the instructions of mainland officials.Exile writer Ma Jian provided a speech venue, Beijing and Sichuan public officials attacked Hong Kong reporters.Among these five things, more than 90 % of journalists believe that there is a different degree of damage to Hong Kong's freedom of journalism in Hong Kong.In 2017 and 2016, more than 90 % of the journalists were considered to affect the freedom of the press.On the contrary, in 2015 and 2014, none of the incidents that had reached 90 % of the journalists recognized. It can be seen that some things that happened in the past three years were considered greatly impact.

Not only is the press attention to society, it is also alarm number

In general, the Hong Kong Freedom Index has fallen to the lowest point in recent years.This not only attracted attention in the press, but also a police number throughout Hong Kong society, because the free circulation of news information is a factor that society can operate and develop normally.Among the three factors that have fallen significantly in 2018, the basic monitoring functions, interview guarantees, and industry structure involving news are important aspects.The changes in the relative importance between various factors also reflect the new environment and challenges in Hong Kong society.

Compared with the freedom of the last year, it represents the subjective feeling of the investigation respondent in a certain year.Both the public and journalists feel that the freedom of pressing in Hong Kong is getting worse.From the score trend in Figure 1, it can be seen that the public's evaluation of the freedom of the press in recent years has converged with the journalist's views.In the past few years, some events that affect the freedom of press have occurred every year, and the evaluation of journalists is very negative.We hope that the press freedom index issued next year will not fall anymore, but the revised fugitive regulations have recently been hotly debated. From the perspective of the journalism industry, I believe it is another incident that impacts the confidence of the freedom of the press.

The author is a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication of the Chinese University and Deputy Dean of the Academy of Social Sciences