You are watching the world while the world is watching you !
這句說話正好捕捉香港主流傳媒現在所面對的尷尬處境. 當世界所有大小媒體, 主流與非主流的記者雲集在一堂, 香港傳媒的一舉一動, 都看在別人的眼裡.
過去一兩個星期, 我不斷聽到外國的朋友向我投訴香港的媒體, 如記者會中向記者解釋了半天WTO對農民工人和發展中國家的影響, 但記者卻要求某些講者擺 post, 第二天一大幅照片說示威者準備就緒與WTO對著幹, 沒有半句說話解釋為何要反世貿.
又如, 前兩個月, 在韓國農民的記者會上, 農民說他們的慘況, 記者第一個提問是, 你們這次會不會自殺?
有很多香港記者希望我代為安排與南韓組織者的採訪, 又覺得民間世貿聯盟那邊唱衰香港媒體, 使來港的團體對記者持敵視的態度, 我回答說, 香港的主流媒體好應該自我檢討 !
以下是 alternet 對 SCMP的批評, alternet的影響力不算大, 但若本地的媒體再不好好自我檢討的話, 我想很快就會上國際大報的頭條 !
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節錄
Hong Kong -- Organizers of a series of grass-roots protests against
the World Trade Organization negotiations here say that weeks of
relentless media focus on supposedly violent "radicals" have created a
dangerous atmosphere and distracted from the issues.
"The South China Morning Post
-- the English-language paper -- has run story after story about
violent anarchists," said Jere Locke, an American labor organizer
volunteering with the local organizing committee. "It's radical this
and dangerous that. And they never report on the issues. What is it
that's making all these people mad at the WTO?"
Yesterday's South China Morning Post
featured a story under the headline "Police on Alert for Radical
Activists," which reported that there was no violence whatsoever during
the first large-scale demonstration on Sunday. But the reporters' tone
was one of surprise, and the story noted that more "militant South
Korean farmers" were expected to arrive ahead of the trade talks'
opening on Tuesday. The article quoted security forces' concerns about
a sale of gas masks in Mong Kok last week.
In a statement on its
website, the Hong Kong People's Alliance -- the group coordinating the
week's civil society events -- condemned the local Eastweek
magazine for its "exaggerated" and "intentional misrepresentation" of
the anticipated protests after it ran a story claiming that a group of
Korean peasants who traveled to Hong Kong to express their frustration
with the WTO were planning to "attack" the Convention Center with a
"suicide protest." The magazine described the Koreans as preparing for
an act of "war."
In 2003, a South Korean farmer protesting the
Fifth WTO Ministerial in Cancun, Mexico, committed suicide. Recent
student protests in South Korea have reportedly turned violent, and
early indications are that the South Koreans are being portrayed as the
violent "bogey-men" for this particular meeting.
Representatives
of the Korean delegation insist that they plan to protest peacefully.
During a press conference yesterday afternoon, Korean unionist leader
Yang Kyeong-Kyoo was asked about the persistent "suicide attack" meme.
He told the gaggle of reporters, "We have had many questions like that,
but we don't have any [idea] that this kind of thing will happen." When
pressed, he said the organizers could "never know" what a member of the
group might do. In this morning's South China Morning Post, his statement was reported under the headline "Radical moves 'not ruled out.'"
The kind of overdramatic pre-protest coverage seen in the Morning Post
is commonplace where ever major trade negotiations are scheduled --
it's been that way ever since the "battle of Seattle" in 1999. The
Seattle protests are often portrayed as the beginning of an age of
violent opposition to global economic arrangements. But according to
witnesses who were present, the Seattle protesters were for the most
part engaged in acts of non-violent civil disobedience when police
forces essentially rioted...