By Stella Hou
Student Journalist, HKBU
2014/11/18
257 word
“Time, accuracy and fairness are the biggest challenges,” said the former News controller of Cable News when he gave a lecture at Hong Kong Baptist University.
Fung Tak Hung, who has been a journalist for 30 years, gave his lecture about the professional challenges of 24 hours news by sharing his experience in the Manila hostage crisis with students.
“I hate to say that, but I felt excited when I hear about the news,”said Fung.
On August 23, 2010, the travel bus carrying 25 people including 20 tourists from Hong Kong was hijacked in Manila.
The first thing Fung tried to do is to contact Hong Thai travel agency, but the agency has no information. “Then I held the phone for 40 minutes,” said Fung, trying to avoid other media calling in.
At 7 p.m., a correspondent from ABS-CBN said that the bus driver escaped and he said all the hostages were killed but Fung didn’t have any way to confirm this information, but he has to make a decision. “What would you do?” Fung asked.
Fung’s choice is to put out this news and emphasize there’s report from ABS-CBN, but it still can’t be confirmed. “Because it’s already on screen. For those who know English, they get. For those who don’t know English, they don’t know what happen”.
The final truth is that following a 90-minute gun battle, the perpetrator and eight of the hostages were killed and several others injured.
“We want to be fast, but we don’t want to be wrong, ” Fung said.
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