sgusers9的部落格

The ideal story for a newspaper is one that can be run day after day without a break — one that has new twists on a daily basis and yet has a constant underlying theme.self storage It draws the buying public in like a soap opera, alternately angering, amusing and in rare cases informing. It must be a simple tale that the public can understand immediately, hopefully with a big adversary and an underdog. Each day produces a few more snippets of news, a comment or press release, maybe even an emotional press conference. Each piece of news is small in itself, enough to keep the interest burning but not so big as to drown out the following day’s snippet. Better still, one party throws in comments that are obviously in conflict with its other statements — the press can then debate the inconsistencies endlessly. The underdog constantly nips at the other side, forcing more and more conflicting retorts. The final fuel to the fire for the readers is for one side to stop playing any more, maybe by saying that it is covered by some kind of “confidentiality” — a privilege unknown to the public who pay the bill. By now, a series of small fires caused by both sides dropping matches, any one of which could have been stamped out by a tap of the shoe, is now a raging conflagration. For two weeks, the worker bees of journalism in Hong Kong have had a field day, turning, dissecting, weighing, filtering, advising, complaining, pontificating and generally relishing in the government’s decision to issue not three TV licenses, but just two. The granting of licenses is a thing that governments do. It’s usually done in accordance with previously carefully declared policies and principles, with a transparency acceptable to the public. In many ways, the public doesn’t really care. The issue of TV licenses is not a contentious one. It does not really affect the mass of the population. It’s not public housing or traffic policy or taxation. It is not about health care services or treatment of the elderly. It is not even about illegal building extensions. It is a third-level non-issue. When the row became amusing, it provided a pyrotechnic levels of news material. Executive Council convener Lam Woon-kwong said running a TV station is not like running a cha chaan teng (tea shop), opening himself up to the hilarious rebuttal that one of the existing TV stations was already run like a dai pai dong (cooked food stall). In fact, the Michelin Star restaurants are already in place in the form of cable and satellite TV and the licenses are really raging over the economy class of TV broadcasting in Hong Kong. How this insignificant issue blew up into a major discussion has revealed the absence of the effective spin doctor in Hong Kong. A spin doctor is a person who is able to spin the news favorably in the direction of his client. The best spin doctors are those in politics, but they also work for large companies, especially potentially messy ones like industrial firms. In this sector, they are often called lobbyists or public relations officials but, in reality, they are a form of s迷你倉in doctor. So, a spin doctor for the government would firstly tell it to shut up and stop releasing daily defensive, conflicting and incendiary comments. So far, the government has said it is not a commercial decision and that it is a commercial decision; that the decision is final and that full explanations will follow. Now this small issue has turned into a fully-fledged Legislative Council debate, which is an enormous distraction from the normal course of government. A spin doctor will tell the whole truth nearly all the time. The truth is that these decisions within government are normally taken inside the department concerned based on transparent policy and ratified by the higher ranks. Any public servant will testify that the government really does want to make the right decision and to be seen making the right decision. That is the foundation of the spin doctor’s rebuttal. What went wrong here? It seems that this petty decision was probably accidentally made at the wrong level, too high up in government and without going through the usual checks lower down. This is embarrassing. The spin doctor will say the government now has to do two things — and immediately the debate will disappear. Firstly is to find a victim, an official to take the blame for the wrong decision and fire them through an internal transfer. Naturally, it is done seriously in public but behind closed doors the victim is entitled to compensation for their selfless act of falling on their sword. The path for forgiveness is always open for those who can be rehabilitated. Secondly is to declare Hong Kong a multi-media center. This will get people excited and positive towards the decision — get everyone on the same side. For a city as globally located as Hong Kong not to be a major center of global media is a poor showing and is due to the industry being obstructed by petty licensing rules left over from the colonial days. Bloomberg alone has a serious establishment here; the rest is local or operate out of small studios or a room and a camera. Give broadcasting licenses to anyone who can pay the fee and abide by the current standards of decency. Really, who cares if we have four, five or 10 TV stations. Let them fight it out and if necessary go bust. These are not public services like hospitals or bus companies — let the market handle the problems. Encourage global news organizations to set up headquarters, news hubs and studios in Hong Kong. Encourage the film and entertainment people to combine their skills to the industry. Hong Kong became a global wine center almost overnight when the government relaxed an outdated duty system. Why should we not become a media center? The positive spinoffs in terms of culture, the arts and analysis would be exceptional. The author is chief executive of Port Shelter Investment Management. How this insignificant (TV license) issue blew up into a major discussion has revealed the absence of the effective spin doctor in Hong Kong. A spin doctor is a person who is able to spin the news favorably in the direction of his client.” mini storage