Alibaba buys Hong Kong’s SCMP, may be a blow to editorial independence

Chinese internet giant Alibaba has acquired SCMP, the Hong Kong-based media house behind 103-year-old newspaper the South China Morning Post.

While Alibaba has pledged to uphold the paper’s editorial independence, Memeburn understands that there is speculation around the acquisition being made as a “national service”.

Alibaba has however promised to drop the paywall on the publication’s online offering.

According to Alibaba executive vice chairman Joseph Tsai, the acquisition is a way for the company to combine Alibaba’s digital strength with SCMP’s editorial excellence and will allow the paper to become a powerful digital offering covering China for the rest of the globe.

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“SCMP is a unique property. It’s the only English-language paper in Hong Kong that everybody will read… We see this as a great opportunity to create a unique product… it is for everybody who cares to know more about China and to understand it – whether you are in New York or London or anywhere where English is spoken,” Tsai told the Post in an interview published on Friday.

He also gave reaching that global audience as a reason for tearing down the paper’s decade-old paywall.

“Some say the newspaper industry is a sunset industry. We don’t see it that way. We see it as an opportunity to use our technological expertise and our digital assets to distribute news in a way that has never been done before,” he said.

Tsai also tried to allay fears that the acquisition would compromise SCMP’s editorial integrity.

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“We have to have the readers’ trust. That will depend on reporting that is objective, balanced and fair. If we don’t have that trust, we cannot build up our readership. Even though we are the corporate owner, we will let the editors decide the editorial policy and direction of coverage for any story. That’s our basic principle,” he said.

Some would however be worried by what he means when he suggests that the Post could offer the world a more “balanced and fair” representation of China than it currently gets.

“China is a rising economy and it is the second-largest economy in the world. People should learn more about China, [but] the coverage about China should be balanced and fair,” he said. “Today when I see mainstream western news organisations cover China, they cover it through a very particular lens… We believe things should be presented as they are. Present facts, tell the truth, and that is the principle that we are going to operate on.”

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He added that Alibaba would make a significant investment in the newsroom, particularly in its digital operations. He did however say that it would retain the SCMP broadsheet.

“We feel that what underpins success is editorial excellence. We are willing to make an investment to hire more journalists, more editors to maintain the quality of the paper and to strive for broader and more in-depth coverage. That is our commitment,” he said.

That said, he added that there would be significant investment in the paper’s mobile offering.

“The paywall is so inconvenient, even for people who want to pay, there is friction… Why not make content more accessible to anybody who wants to come on a global basis, on a mobile app, on a mobile phone? That is our philosophy. It’s a very internet company philosophy because we believe users should not pay for service or content – the people who end up paying are advertisers who want to reach out to these users,” he said.