So if you had a choice between the SCMP and say Apple Daily (if it was in English), which do you think you would choose? Has HK ever had a real English-language tabloid with over the top stories about local politicians and celebrities and whatnot?
So if you had a choice between the SCMP and say Apple Daily (if it was in English), which do you think you would choose? Has HK ever had a real English-language tabloid with over the top stories about local politicians and celebrities and whatnot?
Last edited by penguinsix; 24-02-2012 at 04:17 PM.
I'd rather have New of the World Sunday Edition.
Apple Daily is child's play they don't break the law/enough ethics to manufacture stories.
What's the use of such newspaper one might ask?
I'd rather have something well balanced and researched with real news and info instead of some toilet paper stories. For this I have geoexpat
GnR : "Has HK ever had a real English-language tabloid with over the top stories about local politicians and celebrities and whatnot"
I'm questionning the need to have such Newspaper.
Apple Daily v SCMP is slightly more complicated than just a question of 'tabloid junk' v 'well-researched quality'.
Jimmy Lai has always had the policy of publishing outrageous and prurient stories in order that he can build sales in order to be editorially independent. That's the reason that Apple is able to run stories that are critical of the HK government, the China government and big business. Apple is one of the few newspapers that can afford to have someone like Li Ka Shing withdraw all his companies' advertising because Apple have run stories critical of his business practices. Of course whether you feel the trade-off is worthwhile given the distress caused to individuals by its journalistic practices is something that can be debated.
The SCMP is very different. It doesn't need to run prurient and offensive stories but it is instead very oriented towards keeping its advertisers happy. It rarely criticises the HK or China government or big businesses in HK in any significant way and I have met journalists at SCMP who feel that they are pushed into writing stories in a particular way in order to keep key advertisers happy.
Of course ideally you'd like to have a newspaper that wasn't afraid to publish articles critical of government and big business (and anybody else) without resorting to sensationalism but the question is whether anybody can make that financially sustainable in a small market.
My comment was based upon what you wrote above, because if the OP just want to know whether you'd like to read SCMP or AD. We all know that there's not one good english news paper here in HK that upholds the journalistic rules, so to speak.
Thus I felt your answer was irrelevant to the question asked.