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Support from public will be key to Apple Daily’s survival in the next five years

蘋果日報 2020/06/22 06:00


The goal for Apple Daily in the next five years is to survive as the vocal Hong Kong newspaper braves further boycotts from advertisers and big corporations amid the city’s looming national security law.
Cheung Kim-hung, the CEO of Next Digital — the publisher of Apple Daily and Next Magazine — said that he expected the 25-year-old pro-democracy newspaper to face even greater suppression after the national security law is enacted. The newspaper’s goal for the next five years is to persevere under such circumstances.
Cheung, who has been with Apple Daily for close to three decades, said the paper has been battling ad boycotts that have worsened over the past 25 years. In the years leading up to the 1997 handover of Hong Kong’s sovereignty from Britain to China, major property developers refused to place ads in the newspaper, which was known — as it still is now — for being a vocal critic of the Chinese Communist Party.
After the pro-democracy Umbrella Movement in 2014, financial corporations such as HSBC, Hang Seng Bank and the Bank of East Asia also stopped advertising in the paper. Cheung said the situation will “probably be the worst” once the national security law is enacted.
Apple Daily’s print advertisements have been a regular topic of discussion on the Facebook page of former Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, who has publicly named and shamed companies that have advertised with the newspaper. Leung has recently started to put pressure on the newspaper’s online advertisers as well, including the likes of BMW and Chinese medicine brand Ma Pak Leung.
According to Cheung, the added pressures brought on by the recent anti-extradition bill protests and the coronavirus pandemic have caused advertising income to drop to nearly zero. Even after the pandemic, Cheung said the company’s ad income is unlikely to recover. Instead, he said the newspaper has been exploring new sources of income. It launched its subscription model last year and has since garnered some 600,000 subscribers. Cheung said he believed the newspaper could sustain itself as long as advertising did not drop any further.
“We will find a way out because we have the support of Hong Kongers,” Cheung said.
The boycotts faced by Apple Daily have not been limited to advertisers but include interviewees as well. Billie Lau, assistant assignment editor of the newspaper’s business section, said some smaller banks have not invited the newspaper to attend group interviews since 2014. She said the anti-extradition bill movement has made things worse, with more interviewees from the banking and financial industries turning down interview requests or being more cautious with what they say.
“Some said they only wanted to talk about business and finance, not politics. But if you are asking them about the future of this financial hub, how can you not talk about the context of the city?” Lau said.
Despite the mounting pressures, Apple Daily has also received support from prominent individuals who believe in the value of press freedom. Tsim Chai-nam, chairman of the Hong Kong Professional Building Inspection Academy, said Apple Daily was a platform for the voice of the people and stressed the importance of speaking truth to power.
Jason Poon, the whistle-blower who exposed the shoddy work behind the city’s most expensive rail project, said Apple Daily’s coverage of the construction scandal helped prevent the issue-ridden Sha Tin-Central link from going into operation. He called Apple Daily a beacon of Hong Kong’s freedom of speech and commended the newspaper for standing its ground even in the face of adversity.
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