1. Hong Kong’s “Friday” news project is a commie plot from Beijing, right?
Actually, no. It’s a project set up by Hong Kong people who think our city and our country deserve fairer news coverage.
2. But it’s bankrolled by the commies in Beijing, right?
No.
3. So go on, then, we dare you to reveal all about who is behind it.
Okay. This group’s main asset without a doubt is its readers – they send scores of pieces of information and suggestions to us every day, and even entire news features which we print. All of which come at no cost. For example, we have a number of excellent features written by law professors. (Have a read. Here are some pieces from Richard Cullen and Grenville Cross.)
4. But the commies pay for the office and keep the lights on, right?
No. We have no office. We tried working from one for a while but realized we didn’t need it.
5. Okay, then, but who pays the staff?
We don’t really have staff. Founder-director Herman Hu (see pic at the top) is unpaid, as are most contributors. The editor and accountant work part-time. The editor writes books, and the accountant works a few hours a month.
6. But the journalists must be paid, right?
Managing editor Nury Vittachi and contributors such as Phill Hynes and Aidan Jonah work at below market rates (thanks, guys!) because they believe in the project.
7. Who pays for the studio, the cameras, the production staff?
Are you kidding? There’s no studio or production staff. The videos you have seen from Nury Vittachi or Emily Zhou have been filmed by themselves on their own phones, and edited using free editing software. This isn’t CNN.
8. So if the Friday project runs on goodwill and the support of the Hong Kong people, does it have any impact?
The Friday project punches well above its weight. We’ve had about nine million views on YouTube, and tens of millions of views on social media, with almost zero marketing spend.
Our small size makes us agile and sustainable.
For a small operation without a marketing spend, our follower numbers are healthy – 40,000 for the Fridayeveryday channel on YouTube, 44,000 for Nury Vittachi’s page on X, and a total of 52,000 for the editor’s page and the corporate page on Facebook.
There are definitely bigger budget media groups which have higher numbers of followers or subecribers, but we frequently have higher engagement levels, with hundreds or thousands of “likes” or comments on individual pieces of content.
9. People on social media say that you are bankrolled by a Beijing billionaire.
Yeah, we saw that! Not true. Because our content is free or inexpensive, and our budget is small, the generosity of the Hu family and other Hong Kong entrepreneurs cover the cost of our content AND our annual forum. Big thanks!
The Hu family are good Hong Kong people who have done incredible amounts of public service in the city for decades. This meant that they worked with the British government until 1997 and with the Chinese government after 1997.
Just as they were proud to represent Hong Kong people in working with the British government in the old days, they are also proud to represent Hong Kong people in working with the Chinese government in the modern era. Like a number of other people in this city, Herman Hu Shao-ming is a Hong Kong Deputy to the National People’s Congress.
When the “Beijing billionaire” allegation was circulated, Friday editor Nury Vittachi pointed out that it seems a bit racist that certain people think it’s perfectly fine for Hong Kong people to work closely with officials outside the city if they are white westerners but not if they are non-white people!
10. So, if the Friday project is really not a project of the government in Beijing, is it a project of the Hong Kong government?
No, it’s not a government project in any way. But we try to maintain good relations with everyone. So our annual forum attracts big names in government as well as academics and business leaders.
11. Is Friday group news censored? Do officials in Beijing or Hong Kong inspect the content before it goes out?
No. It couldn’t be. We do a fair amount of breaking news, so clearly there’s no time for such a process. And our annual forum too is totally uncensored. Panelists say whatever they like, and it is broadcast live.
12. How did it start?
After the social unrest of 2019, both Herman Hu and Nury Vittachi were looking for a way to tell the story of Hong Kong in a fairer way. But it wasn’t until a mutual friend introduced them to each other in 2021 that the Friday project was born. The parent company name was “Friday Culture” because Friday has positive associations (both agreed there was too much negativity about), and “culture” to show the new venture was not a newspaper but would have a broader focus.
13. So that’s why you do culture stuff as well as news?
Yes. Founder Herman Hu wants to make it easy to learn about Hong Kong culture and Mainland Chinese culture, so the Fridayeveryday website has many articles about culture, including history, arts, sports, museums and so on.
Herman’s father Hu fa-kuang, who died in 2022, was an absolute legend in Hong Kong, particularly in arts, culture and sports. He was a key player in the setting up of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, Hong Kong Ballet, the Hong Kong Dance Company, and the Hong Kong Drama Company. He then pushed for the founding of the Hong Kong Arts Festival and the Hong Kong Asian Arts Festival too, eventually getting all the above projects off the ground.
You can read the story of this Hong Kong icon here.
14. Still, you can’t deny that the Friday project is a pro-China news group, like China Daily, right?
No, it’s not like Chinese government media at all. The Friday outlets (which include a website, a YouTube channel, lively social media pages, live forums on stage, and occasional TV shows) are very different. Just take a look – we do a lot of humor, cartoons, opinion columns, and a range of journalistic material from investigative reports to video shorts. Chinese government media is not known for being cheeky, jokey and sarcastic.
15. So are you saying that the Friday project is just another private, impartial media outlet, like its western equivalents?
Actually, no. It’s not like a western news outlet and doesn’t want to be one, says editor Nury Vittachi. This is a soapbox topic for him, so we’ll let him answer it:
Nury Vittachi writes:
Clearly there’s a difference between the general principles of standard western journalism (“If it bleeds, it leads”) and the equivalent in Asia, which has a different feel: calmer, less frenetic, and more wedded to delivering information rather than getting people riled up. In its idealized form, I think it is evolving into something interesting, which we call “Zen Journalism”. That’s what we’re aiming to create.
Asian journalism is more low key, often has a pedagogic element, and is more careful about what it prints. It is more socially aware of avoiding polarization, in contrast to western journalism which has to foster polarization, because it is click-dependent. Asian journalism has a closer relationship to enterpreneurs and government people–which can be a bad thing or a good thing, depending on who the movers and shakers are in your country.
Our baby, Zen journalism, is subtler, and makes its points in a more roundabout way. It will sometimes dip into paradoxical storytelling, in the same way zen koans deliver teaching through humor.
THE FREE SPEECH ISSUE
Also, the west’s almost religious fervor about “free speech absolutism” doesn’t naturally fit into Asian journalism at all.
That’s because Asians are more cohesive as a group, and much more respectful of elders. Western journalists often tell us that the freedom to harshly criticize their elders is of paramount importance. That’s fine. For them. But Asians don’t even put that into their top ten important things about governance.
Asians journalists tendency to have more co-operative attitude with the powers-that-be in their countries is criticized by western counterparts, who ignore the positive aspects. Asian journalism is less clickbaity, less commercialized, less frenetic, less sexploitative, and—most importantly, less inclined to over-politicize issues in ways that are harmful to society and which polarize their readership.
And the result? It’s easy to see how societies of China and Japan, with their less provocative media, are calmer and more cohesive, than places with a more rowdy media, like the US or India. I realize this is a circular process, which tends to feed on itself in the long run. The British have a saying: “A society gets the journalism it deserves.”
It’s important to realize that free speech is not binary, despite what people say (“the United States has it, Singapore and China don’t”). All societies have things which cannot be published, and every community has a moderation process which cuts out certain items, whether it is formalized at civic level or internalized into the editing process.
From another angle, the free speech issue can be seen as a gradient, with very few countries being at either extreme. Yet in general, it is certainly true that Asian journalism is more heavily moderated, sometimes annoyingly so – especially for people used to, say, the lively British tabloids, or the US National Inquirer.
GOOD FOR SOCIETY?
And remember, western journalism talks a good game about truth and values, but is often clearly harmful. Furthermore, its anti-authority stance means that it is driven by profit—unless you make people angry, you don’t get enough clicks to survive. Unfortunately, this means it is often literally an anger-driven medium.
Asia’s more moderated, leadership-friendly journalism is much more like a group of people trying to achieve a positive civic act: delivering information with an awareness that information and the way it is delivered should take pains to avoid being harmful to society in the long term.
The result is journalism that is less dramatic than eye-grabbing western journalism, and is sometimes annoyingly censored, and which is definitely less profitable from a purely capitalist viewpoint.
But in the long run, it may have more value for society, as long as the country’s leadership is working for the good of the people, rather than for themselves. And it can work very well. That appears to be clear in comparing the extraordinary growth of heavily moderated China over the past half century, with the painfully slow growth of freewheeling, ultra-pluralistic India. Discuss.
More questions? Best bet for an answer is to write to Nury Vittachi via one of his social media pages. His X page is here.