Good writers needed

Time to sharpen business journalists’ weapons

Whenever I turn on the business news channel of a local TV station, I can't help but switch to another channel after two minutes. For more than two years that I have watched its business news program, the TV station's reporters (and editors) can't tell the difference between percentage and percentage point. For instance, the number of people unemployed in Hong Kong last month increased by 30,000 to 330,000. The TV reporters always would say unemployment in Hong Kong has increased by 10 percentage points. That's wrong. It has increased by 10 percent. Or, the unemployment rate has jumped by half a point to 5.5 percent.

If Hong Kong business journalists are so poorly equipped, how can the city continue to prosper as China's main financial center? Hong Kong businessmen, foreign businessmen in town and local investors need accurate and concise financial information as well as analysis to make intelligent decisions on business and investment plans.

It's time we did something to sharpen business journalists' weapons. First, the Hong Kong Journalism Education Foundation can organize and fund, say, four training workshops a year for practising journalists. Indeed, 10 local business journalists (and eight more from the mainland and Taiwan) who took part in a week-long business news-writing workshop in September, jointly run by Hong Kong Baptist University and the Thomson Reuters Foundation, found the training very useful. In a scale from 1 to 5 (5 is most useful and effective), they gave the workshop an average score of 4.5.

Second, local government-funded universities should consider offering special programs to train financial journalists. So far, only Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) has business news concentrations in both its graduate-level and undergraduate-level studies. Hong Kong University's Journalism and Media Studies Center and the Chinese University's Journalism School offer only one or two courses in business news reporting. That's far from enough. These two institutions, taking a cue from HKBU, should beef up the training of aspiring business journalists.

Hong Kong will survive if it can maintain its status as China's major financial center. To keep our young people's future secure, we should strengthen all pillars and fire all engines that would consolidate and strengthen Hong Kong's role and status as a world-class financial center. Our universities produce enough accountants, investment bankers and lawyers, but we don't have adequate programs to train students, and enhance practising journalists' skills to become competent business journalists. There's no room for complacency. Let's act now.

The author is director of the MA program in international journalism at Hong Kong Baptist University.