Some HK media beyond the pale

When the US leader announced he was raising tariffs on the goods imported from China by an extra 5 percent, Apple Daily, a newspaper based in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, declared it was "More good news".

It seems Apple Daily as a newspaper is trying to humiliate its own country. That's why many say the newspaper is poisonous. Actually, Apple Daily has been poisonous for a long time.

Last week, it was journalists from Apple Daily who surrounded Chen Xiaoqian, head of Guangdong Radio and Television Hong Kong branch, and verbally intimidated her, even though she was just doing her job. It is hard to imagine why the newspaper's "journalists" carry such deep hate toward their colleague from the Chinese mainland.

Even before the recent turmoil in Hong Kong, certain Hong Kong media outlets were expressing unfair views against their mainland compatriots and continually trying to humiliate them. During the most recent turmoil, they have even been distorting facts there by curbing the police from enforcing law and shooting one-sided videos that show only the police actions without revealing the violence of demonstrators.

In the news conference, they humiliated the HKSAR chief executive by asking when she would die. Is that press freedom? They are abusing the word and bringing shame not only upon Hong Kong journalism, but the press as a whole. In some sense, certain Hong Kong media outlets have already become a new source of chaos in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong needs to end the violence and restore order soon. However, do not forget that order in journalism is part of the social order, too. In an environment where ill-behaved media outlets go unregulated, it is illusive to expect the society to stay calm. Therefore, those who employ violence in their deeds must be punished by law, while those who create "senses of terror" in journalism should also be regulated, so that social order can be restored soon.