Week 3 The media role under the passing of the high speed railway (By Ivan,Ann and Cherry)

The media role under the passing of the high speed railway

Faced with such strong opposition, Hong Kong's high-speed railway funding applications finally were passed by the Legislative Council on 4th December. We can see a lot of news reported by different kinds of media from newspaper, television, radio and etc. Even the general public who didn’t follow this news will also get lots of information from different media channels. However, what we can see is how rude and crazy those so called “after 80’s” demonstrators colliding with Hong Kong Legislative Council. Are they really so irrational and non-peaceful?

After a few days of the collision of the Legislative Council, tons of online discussions were concerning about the demonstration on that day. Tons of people say that they are demonstrating in a peaceful way, such as a sit-in demonstration and peaceful parade. And also the main purpose is just to dialogue with the secretary for transport and housing, Ms Eva Cheng but she refused to do so. However, a few days before the passing of the funding, I could see the secretary for transport and housing, Ms Eva Cheng and the chief executive, Mr. Donald Tsang were so responsively and kindly to introduce the high quality of Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway and promised the public they would have a conversation with those demonstrators through different kinds of media respectively. Indeed, our secretary for transport and housing, Ms Eva Cheng said that there was a potential risk and finally she listened to the police’s advice not to meet with the protesters. And the Hong Kong's high-speed railway funding applications finally was passed.

Of course, the secretary was not really so busy in the past two to three months. She took large amounts of information, visited different kinds of the media to make internal briefing and invited them to go to the Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway, unilaterally to recount their version of the story. Emphasizing how the important are the construction of the high speed railway and how comfortable would the railway be. I don’t know why all these media will support this funding application so enthusiastically even under such strong opposition by the public. Why don’t the media help those weak “after 80’s” demonstrators to express their opinions and postpone the passing of the high-speed railway funding application to strike a balance between the Government and the public? Actually the media acted just like a tool of the Government to promote their views. The society can’t wonder that why those so called “after 80’s” didn’t trust and listen to the media. And the media were not responsible to their job as reporting the truth and were just like a governmental spinning machine.

From this event, we can see how dissatisfaction that the public view about parts of Hong Kong media. However, I still believed that it’s just a part of Hong Kong media, and most of them have their own ethic and will report the truth. I hope that under the cooperation of the Government, media and the new generation of Hong Kong, there will not be anymore conflict of social issues and media can balance different people’s points of view.