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

Online journalism is a like a gold-rush for journalists that can effectively combine their news gathering skills with the multimedia demands of the web. The journalists of today are facing a new frontier and the ones that thrive will be those with the vision to read the landscape, learn and adapt quickly.

During a recent discussion about online journalism, Dan Chung, a photojournalist from The Guardian, said that he began his career shooting film with a Leica (right), whereas now, he creates multimedia projects for the web using a Canon XH-A1 HD Super Acronym Camera and Final Cut Pro.

The Guardian is the most popular British newspaper site on the web, drawing 16 million unique visitors each month so Dan’s experience is clearly indicative of where online journalism is headed.

Another interesting fact is that many British newspaper sites have a larger readership in America than Britain. Geographical distance between the media and their readers is no longer an issue.

New technology is changing the fundamental rules and assumptions about journalism and as a result creating new opportunities. The first step in taking advantage of this will be to pay close attention to the trends impacting digital media such as bloggers, Wiki sites, SMS, P2P file sharing and Wifi access, and then develop the capabilities to incorporate them into your work.

There couldn’t possibly be a better time to be studying journalism and new media on the doorstep of the world’s most populous country.

I have lived in Hong Kong for over ten years but originally I came from Seattle. I’m a postgraduate student at the University of Hong Kong in the New Media Workshop class.