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Freedom of the Press: Why a Free Press Matters

Delivered by Christopher Patten, Governor of Hong Kong from 1992-1997, at the Inauguration of the Freedom Forum Asian Center, Hong Kong, China, January 17, 1994.

Christopher Patten (© AP Images)

The other day I paid an official visit to one of the places where power really lies in Hong Kong. Please note – really lies. Not, funnily enough, Government House – although power lies there as well. Not the Government secretariat – although power lies there. Not the Legislative Council – although they too have power under our constitution.

Where was this place, you ask? Who owns it? Who works there? I speak, of course, of the newsroom of one of our major television stations here in Hong Kong.

There are some powerful people there. For – as in any free society – it is they who decided in large measure, what 6 million people in Hong King will hear about their Governor, their Government, their Legislative Council, about what’s going on in the world. It is they who decide what is seen and what is not seen, what is heard and what is not heard, what sees the light of day or the dust of the cutting room floor. And in doing so, through the medium of television – the most powerful communication medium intended – they have a profound impact on the lives of everyone in this Territory.

Of course, I don’t want to pretend they are the only people who wield this power. They do it in concert with their competitors – some based in Hong King, others beamed in from the other side of the world. They compete with a plethora of newspapers, magazines and other publications. Hong Kong has a voracious appetite for news – there are more newspapers sold per head in this community than anywhere else in the world – at least according to the Economist, itself a powerful and respected organ of the free Press, also sold freely and in large number in Hong Kong.

So Hong Kong, like any open and free society, has a thirst for news, for the facts, for the truth. A hunger to hear what’s going on in the world, to hear both sides of the story.

Nobody pretends the free Press is pluperfect. Not even the Press. But without a free Press we are in trouble. As Edward Murrow, writing before the television age really came into its own, put it: “It is well to remember that freedom through the Press is the thing that comes first.”

Freedom through the Press. It’s a good phrase. How can a society claim to be free if it is not possible to tell freely what is going on in that society? It is through freedom of the Press that so many of the other attributes of a free society take on life and meaning. After all there’s no point electing a legislature if no one can report what it gets up to. Without the free flow of ideas, without the constant clash of opinions, different opinions, how can we ever hope to get to the truth? Ideas have to be tested in open argument to see how they stand up, to distil truth from falsehood. How can any society claim to be free that doesn’t have this freedom?

A cleanly-elected, self-confident legislature is one of the buttresses of the freedoms Hong Kong holds dear, but it is not the only one. A free Press is, in its own way, just as important. You see, all these freedoms interrelate. Damage one and you harm another. Uphold one, and you reinforce the rest.

It’s no good having a freely elected legislature without a free Press to report its activities. If you can’t ask questions of Governors and governments, then you soon fetch up not just with bad government, but corrupt government, bullying government, imperious and ultimately, perhaps tyrannical government. Conversely, where questions can be asked, where there’s a healthy diversity of views, where the pompous and the secretive can be exposed, there you tend to have government that is accountable and government that is better.

Autocrats understand all this better than most. They know you can’t repress people for long if your every action can be reported, criticised, exposed in the newspaper or on the small screen, - or, worst of all, satirized. Dictators and authoritarians don’t tend to be good at taking a joke.

So freedom of speech tends to be the first thing that authoritarian regimes try to suppress. They begin by conning the people – and they finish up by conning themselves.

Fortunately for free societies, they do not represent the wave of the future because as the saying goes “you can kid some of the people for some of the time, but you can’t kid all of the people for all of the time.” The good news is that nowadays it is getting harder to kid them for even some of the time.

Where 40 or 50 years ago, economic, technological and social developments were generally thought to help solidify central control, today the reverse appears to be the case. Information and ideas are exchanged more freely and more widely.

You have to feel sorry for the modern censor. He can strike out a sentence, he can doctor photographs, but more and more people have access to satellites and videos. True, you can ban satellite dishes and ban videos, but nobody imagines that you’ll succeed in doing that for very long – and in the meanwhile, of course, more people want satellite dishes and more people want to watch whatever you’ve banned.

What does this mean for Hong Kong? It means huge opportunities and great responsibilities.

Huge opportunities for Hong Kong to reap the benefits of the information revolution as the media capital of Asia. The benefits to our economy promise to be very substantial.

But it means great responsibility too. For if we are to reap those economic rewards, then Hong Kong – its government, its Press, its people – must stand up for Press freedom here, both before and after 1997. The Chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists’ Association had described Hong Kong as “an oasis of Press freedom” in the region. She is right to do so. We must all work to keep it that way.

In Government, we have a special responsibility to do our bit. We will not shirk that responsibility. I repeat my pledge; this Governor and this Government will defend the freedom of the press up hill and down dale. To paraphrase Voltaire, sometimes, we may not like what you say, but we’ll defend to the death your right to say it.

Encouraged by the Journalists association, we are reviewing and amending much of our legislations to ensure that they do not, in any way, infringe on the freedom of the Press.

Ultimately, the day to day guardians of Press freedom are the practitioners themselves – the reporters, the news editors, the proprietors who work for and own the Hong Kong Press.

The people of Hong Kong depend on you to get them the news, to tell them straight, without fear or favour. They rely on you to stand up for Hong Kong’s way of life by standing up for your right to do your job effectively.

In the special circumstances of Hong Kong, I do not present that this will always be easy.

But you are not alone. The opening of this office today, and the presence of Freedom Forum Asia Centre in Hong Kong, shows clearly that the sympathetic eyes of the world’s media are on Hong Kong. We are pleased to have the Freedom Forum in Hong Kong and wish you a warm welcome. Your presence underlines Hong Kong’s continuing role as the Asian media capital. It will help to protect and enhance that role.

Thomas Jefferson once said that “Our liberty depends on freedom of the Press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”

That is true in any society. But it is perhaps especially true in this remarkable, extraordinary community.