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Xinqi Su 蘇昕琪

1 Dec, 13 tweets, 3 min read

An avalanche is taking place in iCable News, HK's best non-state-owned TV newsroom.

To protest against the short-noticed firing of 40 staff including the award-winning investigative team News Lancet, full China news team and heads of local, financial, intl news have resigned.

Rounds of meetings between staff and parachuted management have taken place but none yielded any meaningful explanation to the decision of chopping away journos who are considered the best and fastest by their peers.

The line-to-take of the management is that the company has to lay off redundancies due to financial difficulties under #covid19 and needs of restructuring. Yet, why started from the best, remains a question unanswered.

In this morning, when news staff gathered around the management and demanded explanations, news director Anderson Chan, a former ATV senior who was parachuted to head iCable News in August, called the reporters "hooligans" 爛仔.

The first two newsroom senior to resign in solidarity with the 40 being laid off are assistant chief editor and chief editor of Hong Kong news, as the former has been recently tasked to supervise News Lancet, the epicentre of this round of mass firing.

Following is the 12-people team of China News, which also runs a signature programme covering news in mainland China for iCable. On their FB page, the team said they will do their best in the rest of their days.

It's understood that all staff of the Hong Kong news unit have prepared their resignation letters but have not submitted the notification en masse after the latest meeting, again a fruitless one, with the management.

In a long-awaited press release, iCable revealed that around 100 staff, instead 40 that has been reported, are affected in this round of firing.

The company said it "adjusted the structure and staffing of all departments" in order to “increase income and reduce expenditure".

The major lay-off and exodus of journos in protests are believed to remark the fall of the iCable newsroom, former and current journos of the TV station said.

"Long gone are the days when TV news could stand less close to the eye of storm compared with other media."

The fall of iCable can also mean a long nail driven into the shackles on TV news in HK.

Between June and September, 5 TV news seniors deemed in the trade professionally mediocre but politically reliable were parachuted to head NOW TV News (1) and iCable News (4).

In August, 3 senior engineers working for the news dept of iCable were laid off, prompting joint statement by some 220 news dept staff, demanding the then newly installed management to explain, but in vain.

Today it seems that the protest did not generate any deterrence.

Now with the loss of News Lancet and to-be loss of iCable China News, the remaining investigative TV news programmes in HK are:

RTHK - HK Connection (producer prosecuted)
NOW TV - Now Report (only 4 yrs old)
TVB - News Magazine & Sunday Report (summative more than investigative)

Last time when HK sorely and helplessly lost a popular TV programme was in June, when RTHK's signature sarcastic show Headliner was suspended under complaints and gov punishment.

"We are merely the first drop of blood," producer Ng Chi-sum then said.

Prophecy proved.

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Xinqi Su 蘇昕琪

@XinqiSu

1 Dec

Wong Lai-ping, deputy chief of China news of iCable, said management made lay-off decision without consulting unit heads. Szeto Yuen, China news chief, had decided in advance that he would resign if any one in his team got fired. The rest of team decided to follow Szeto's lead.

China news deputy Wong Lai-ping's voice began to shake when she recalled how iCable ignored the efforts her team paid despite pay cut.

"We went to Wuhan when other news stations evacuated; We never missed one day of news despite manpower crunch under quarantine..."

Wong said the parachuted management "had rather hostile attitudes towards the newsroom", and what happened today has crossed the journos' bottom line although "we had been putting up with everything, hoping it would be our last compromise".

Read 5 tweets

Xinqi Su 蘇昕琪

@XinqiSu

16 Nov

The 25-say death inquest for ex-HKUST student #AlexChow kicked off today with Chow’s father and a female police commander being the first two called to the witness stand.

For the first time in slightly over one year, Chow’s parents appeared in public and Chow’s father spoke...

...about Alex, his only child with his wife Lee Lai-lai.

Alex was founding lying in a puddle of blood on the ground of Carpark A of Sheung Tak Estate in Tseung Kwan O in the midnight between 3&4 Nov. He was certified dead in the morning of 8 Nov, nearly three months...

...after his 22nd birthday. Around the time Alex fell in the carpark, riot police were dispersing protesters in Sheung Tak areas, deploying tear gas and other anti-riot weapons. After Alex’s death, the Operation Dawn citywide roadblocking protests soon reached its climax, when...

Read 22 tweets

Xinqi Su 蘇昕琪

@XinqiSu

13 Oct

Mainland lawyer Lu Siwei working on the case of #12HKers issued a new legal opinions, saying:

1) He expects the Shenzhen prosecutors not to extend detention for investigation beyond the 2 months' limit

2) He expects the 2 underaged among the 12 won't be prosecuted as...

...the prosecutors are allowed by China's laws not to and it fulfils international conventions

3) He suggests that families have rights to information, communications and meetings, and they may ask HK's delegates to Beijing to discharge their duties...

...by demanding Yantian authorities to correct their wrongs via the Ministry of Public Security and the Supreme People's Procuratorate

At the end of his opinion, Lu wrote:

"The 8.23 illegal border crossing case is nothing more than a very ordinary case. However...

Read 6 tweets

Xinqi Su 蘇昕琪

@XinqiSu

12 Oct

#JUSTIN #CarrieLam said she told LegCo president this morning that she has to postpone pronouncement of Policy Address originally set on Wednesday morning. Lam said this arrangement is legally sound as it's up to CE to determine the day according to LegCo ordinance.

#CarrieLam said she has to postpone Policy Address because she just got a notification from Beijing asking her to pay a visit to the central government later this month, likely after 20 October, to seek approval of certain policies and projects

#CarrieLam said a HK government delegation led by her will set off to Shenzhen later today. Members of the delegation include Financial Secretary, Secretary for Justice, Security Secretary, Mainland Affairs Secretary, Innovation Secretary, and Chief Executive Office Director.

Read 9 tweets

Xinqi Su 蘇昕琪

@XinqiSu

10 Oct

#NOW HK police's organised crime unit arrested 4 men and 5 women aged 27 to 72 this morning for "arresting fugitives".

The case is related to the 12 HKers intercepted by China coastguard on 23 Aug and since have been detained in Shenzhen.

"We suspected that these 9 persons assisted the 12 people to run from justice in court," the police said.

The 9 persons are alleged to have provided the speedboat, funding, accommodation before the trip and after arrival in Taiwan, and a car ride to the departure spot.

Police said they seized HK$500,000 in cash, some computers and mobile phones, and several hundreds of thousand worth boat trip transaction invoices.

The 9 people mostly reported to be "friends" of the 12 HKers.

Read 5 tweets

Xinqi Su 蘇昕琪

@XinqiSu

6 Oct

#NOW HK education secretary Kevin Yeung said to weed out black sheep in education sector is for the purpose of "defending dignity of educators and public trust in them".

Since protests broke out last June, the Education Bureau received 247 complaints against teachers, among which 73 were found invalid.

Among the rest, 1 teacher has been deregistered (on 22 Sep), 21 were condemned, 12 got warning letter, 19 written advice, 18 got verbal reminder

Michelle Li, permanent secretary for education, said the punishment was "reasonable" and "proportionate" as the case is deemed "very serious".

Li said the teacher "placed emphasis on HK independence" and "induce students to discuss whether they agree with HK independence".

Read 18 tweets

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