Bob the Blogger

Photojournalists compare their photos during a political rally before sending them out across the wire.

The Internet has made it possible for photojournalists like these to spend less time in the office and more time in the field reporting. One photographer told me that he goes into their newsroom only two or three times a month now. When he first started about 15 years ago, he had to rush back to the office after every job in order to develop his photos in the darkroom. Now they rush to the nearest location with wireless Internet access, which is quite often any one of the coffee shops dotted around the city. You’ll often times see them hunched over a table, impatiently stabbing the keys of a laptop while a pricey Canon or Nikon camera sits nearby.

In talking to photojournalists in Hong Kong, most recognize that the Internet has created a larger market for the use of digital photos, which ensures a certain degree of job security. The Internet has also had some negative affects as well - most notably in making it easier to violate copyrights.

The newswire agencies do a good job of maintaining the security of the photographs they sell. They usually have long-term relationships with their customers and make sure those customers abide by the industry’s practices and standards. However, no system is foolproof. The moment a photo has been sent to a customer, they have to trust that customer to ensure it doesn’t get transmitted elsewhere.

The Internet has made sharing photos easier than ever; which can be good or bad depending on your perspective. The capacity to share photos with a wider audience has enabled some people to become professional photographers less than a year after picking up a new camera. They did this by posting their stuff on Flickr and then getting feedback from a virtual community of experts and pros that regularly browse the site. I don’t know if anybody has used Flickr to make the jump into press photography yet but it certainly seems likely.

Getting into press photography requires a body of work to demonstrate your photography skills are at the appropriate standard, a good reputation within the photojournalist fraternity, and most important of all - luck. The Internet has taken away the need to lug around a portfolio of 8×10 prints. Instead photographers have to maintain a professionally designed Web site to showcase their work. If a photographer doesn’t have a Web site listed on their business card then that photographer will have no credibility.

Another way to lose credibility is to ‘Photoshop’ your photos. The best example of this was a series of photos taken by Adnan Hajj, a freelance photographer. It was a blogger, named Charles Johnson, who highlighted the dishonesty, which eventually led to Reuters firing Mr Hajj and purging his photos from their archives. Blogs on the Internet have become the watchdog’s watchdog. If photojournalists become complacent, sloppy or even try to deceive the public they are supposed to serve then bloggers like Mr Johnson will take them to task and rightly so.

Press photography is and always will be a very competitive field and the pay is minimal compared to just about all other professions. But the buzz that comes from observing and reporting the news more than makes up for that. Photojournalism has been dramatically changed by the Internet and for the most part that change has been positive. As the Internet continues to evolve we can only hope that trend continues.

Paul Zimmerman, a Civic Party candidate running for the Wan Chai District Council, has been very busy canvassing for support. I managed to catch up with him on two occasions to ask him a few questions about his candidacy and to take some photos.

Mr Zimmerman is a very interesting candidate not only because he has been very active in his community but he is also the only ‘gwei lo’ running for the district council.

A soundbite from Mr Zimmerman:

a001.mp3

This week I’m planning to meet with a candidate from the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong to get some more photos and audio for the other half of our story.

For the candidates profile stories, I’m going to interview Paul Zimmerman from the Civic Party and Siu Ka Yi from the DAB. The Civic Party is a new pan-democratic party, whereas the DAB is the most organised and well established party from the pro-Bejing side.

I have already contacted Paul previously so I was planning to interview him and take some photos whilst he’s out canvassing in his constituency on Stubbs Road. I realise that he has been very active in promoting urban planning and development so getting pictures and quotes related to those topics would be most appropriate. Mr Zimmerman is convenor of the Designing Hong Kong Harbour District and has written numerous stories for SCMP.

Siu Ka Yi is from the DAB, which always has the most supporters and candidates. She is running in the Tung Wah constituency for the Central and Western District Council. Her profession according to her nomination information is community co-ordinator. The material I get will largely depend on what I find out during the interview. I hope to get some photos of her ‘in action’ in her community with some colourful soundbites to go along with it. I haven’t found many online sources of information on Ms Siu.

During an election, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between different candidates who are trying hard to be everything for all people. They use promotional opportunities to embellish on their achievements and deny or gloss over whatever shortcomings they may have. I wanted a blunt and honest assessment of the candidates in my constituency so I found two people willing to share their opposing views. Both are long-time residents and regular voters in the Stanley Shek O constituency, however, Mrs Lee is a retiree, whereas Mr Ko is a business owner. Their expectations, needs and priorities differ significantly from one another although they both live in the same estate. As I reflected on both of the interviews afterward it dawned on me that I hadn’t just learned more about the candidates for the upcoming election but I had also learned more about my local community as well… which is a good thing.

Mrs Lee’s interview, with translation, 1:48:

a001work.mp3

Mr Ko’s interview, 4:45:

a006.mp3

The rally for universal suffrage last Sunday, not only attracted those in favour of democracy but also this plucky individual, who was holding a banner stating that democracy resulted in people like Chen Shui-bian being elected.

The vast majority of the demonstrators read the banner, chuckled or shook their heads and simply continued on their way. A handful of people, however, stopped and began taunting the man. As more people marched by, the man and his banner developed into a congregation point and the taunts became more aggressive. At least two people tried to knock the banner down with their umbrellas

Fortunately the police resolved the problem by forming a cordon around the fellow and removed his banner. This defused the situation immediately and the crowd moved away.

Afterward I kept wondering to myself what in the world was this person thinking? Why mention Chen Shui-bian when he could have used George W. Bush instead? It just doesn’t make any sense.

Today, I interviewed Jojo as part of the New Media class at the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at HKU. Here is the audio file: Jojo

A dragon dances past the Stanley Fishermen’s Recreation Club as part of the national day celebrations on Sunday 30 September. Lasting for over eight hours, the organisers appear to have spared no expense in demonstrating their patriotism. Suckling pig, Cantonese opera, dancing dragons and dancing maidens were all included in the jam-packed programme.

Stanley and Shek O District Councillor, Chan Lee Pui Ying, was on hand to boost the profile of her re-election campaign. Mrs Chan, a former movie actress, was spotted distributing leaflets and greeting residents in her constituency a week before the nomination period of 2-15 October. During the last election, Mrs Chan narrowly kept her seat in the District Council and she is determined to keep it again this time.

Mrs Chan’s rival for the District Council, Alson Wong Kam-chuen, also took part in the day’s festivities. Mrs Chan’s expression, in the background, speaks volumes about the feelings these two candidates have for one another. It’s interesting to note that in the last election, six of the 17 constituencies in Southern District were uncontested, but Mrs Chan and Mr Wong battled fiercely for the Stanley and Shek O seat.

Some of the more mature residents of Stanley and Shek O can usually be relied upon to raise attendance figures for community events like this one. More photos of the celebrations can be seen at www.flickr.com/photos/robertolsen

The former chief secretary for the administration, Anson Chan Fang On-sang, criticised the government’s Green Paper on universal suffrage yesterday, saying that it was “designed to confuse” and meant to provide an “excuse for procrastination”.

“I’m disappointed that the Green Paper did not deliver on his [chief executive] election pledge…to set out three viable options…that receive 60 percent or more of the community’s support,” she said.

Mrs Chan, 67, was elaborating on her open letter to the chief executive during a forum at the University of Hong Kong entitled: Universal Suffrage in Hong Kong: The Green Paper and Beyond.

This week, I came across an advertisement on the the back of a minibus for Alson Wong Kam-chuen (centre), a Southern District Council candidate from the Stanley and Shek O constituency. During the last election in 2003, he narrowly lost to Chan Lee Pui Ying, by just 163 votes (1,378 to 1,215). Mr Wong kicked off his campaign on Sunday, at the Stanley Cultural Festival where Legislators Miriam Lau Kin-yee (left) and Howard Young (right), were the guests of honour.

The Southern District includes the following constituencies: Aberdeen, Ap Lei Chau Estate, Ap Lei Chau North, Lei Tung I, Lei Tung II, South Horizons East, South Horizon West, Wah Kwai, Wah Fu I, Wah Fu II, Pokfulam, Chi Fu, Tin Wan, Heung Yue, Wong Chuk Hang, Bays Area and Stanley and Shek O.

The two English-language dailies in Hong Kong, the South China Morning Post and The Standard, are both good sources of information for the District Council elections. Unfortunately the SCMP requires a subscription for access to their site so I tend to use an online database like Lexis-Nexis or Factiva.

In fact, SCMP ran a three-part series on the elections on 6-8 August, featuring a few of the candidates likely to contend for seats, which included Star Ferry protester Ho Loy, environmental activist Paul Zimmerman and conservationist Judy Love-Eastham. It seems the issues likely to get the most attention will be those that translate across districts like the environment, the wealth gap and conservation versus development.

Also reported by the SCMP in the same series was that the Democratic Party would field around 110 candidates, whereas the Liberal Party would support about 60, the Civic Party around 40 and the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong nearly 200. The DAB is the largest political party in Hong Kong.

Some of the websites that can provide context on the broader political issues in Hong Kong are the Hong Kong Journal, Association for Asian Research, Asia Sentinel and Asia Times Online. The Hong Kong Journal is only a quarterly publication but it has contributions from some well known journalists like Danny Gittings and Frank Ching.

Hong Kong related blogs containing both insightful commentary and links to more information includes:
- EastSouthWestNorth, a blog that regularly translates and compares the Chinese media’s reports on Hong Kong political affairs in English. This can be an invaluable insight for the non-Chinese speaking media;

- Learning Cantonese, a blog by Daisann McLane, who is a journalist that resides in both Hong Kong and New York. She makes regular contributions about Hong Kong affairs in Slate Magazine;

- Alice Poon, a blog by a person of the same name, who is also the author of Land and the Ruling Class in Hong Kong, available at Bookazine and Dymocks;

- Mister Bijou, a blog commenting on a number of Hong Kong related issues. I haven’t found any background information on him or her yet.

The Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor could prove to be another source of information or interesting quotes. During the previous district council elections in 2003 they stated their position quite clearly in a press release entitled: Stop Wrecking Elected Representation.

As the project of covering the District Council elections develops so too will the sources of information. An example of this was an article I just found entitled Brave New Word by Hamish McKenzie in BC Magazine profiling even more Hong Kong blogs.

District Council member Cyd Ho Sau-lan