Exclusive | News-based education hub set to be launched in Hong Kong to show visitors city’s media history

Brainchild of the Journalism Education Foundation will open after five years of planning and will not rule out exhibitions of past politically sensitive events

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Former police commissioner Tang King-shing is one of the heads of the expo. Photo: Sam Tsang

Published: 6:01pm, 10 Feb 2018Updated: 11:32pm, 10 Feb 2018

Hong Kong is set to launch a news-based education and tourist hub that will be a first in Asia for multimedia content and the first in the world to provide free entry, its officers have revealed.

The Hong Kong News-Expo, expected to open in December after five years of planning and preparation, is the brainchild of the Journalism Education Foundation – a non-profit organisation seeking to raise industry standards – but its mission has drawn support from beyond journalists.

“I was at the other end of the microphone and that attracted me to this project which enables me to understand news-making,” former police commissioner Tang King-shing and the expo’s management committee chair since 2014, told the Post.

Hong Kong’s news museum will show history as it happened

“I believe there is always more than one angle to things and seeing how the media has reported major events in the past from different angles gives me immense satisfaction,” he said.

Another volunteer, Professor Clement So York Kee at Chinese University’s school of journalism and communication, said: “The expo tells a systematic story about news and reveals the many aspects of journalism in Hong Kong, including the difficulties in journalistic endeavours and contributions.”

So heads the exhibition and programme committee of the expo.

“For tourists and non-locals, they can better understand why journalism in Hong Kong is so important for the city’s success in the past 150 years in terms of the free flow of information. For locals, they can see how news is so intimately related to major events and their collective memories,” he said.

But the news hub will not only be about the past.