HONG KONG – Journalists across the Asia Pacific region are finding new ways to survive and thrive in a changing world where new technology, new competition, new challenges and new dangers confront the profession.

“This is the most exciting time to be in media in the 20 years I’ve been in the profession,” said Almar Latour, editor in chief, Asia, for The Wall Street Journal. “More people have more access to information than ever before.”

But Latour and other panelists and delegates at the “Reporting New Realities in Asia and the Pacific” international media conference also noted that newspapers are vanishing, once-trusted media voices are being challenged and advancing technology is rendering obsolete and replacing one media-related industry after another.

Social media – Facebook, Twitter, My Space and a myriad of other ways to share information – have become tools for both news distribution and news gathering. User contributions are helping people find each other in major calamities, with new media serving as “communication central” when government systems fail.

Media panels at the East-West Center’s 2^nd international media conference, co-sponsored by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre (JMSC) at the University of Hong Kong, addressed such topics as how to create viable online and other media, get people to pay for online news, battle government regulation and repression, mitigate the dangers of the profession, and achieve and maintain media freedom.

Sheila Coronel, a top Philippines journalist who now heads Columbia University’s Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism in New York City, moderated a panel that kicked off a day of Asian media introspection, story-telling and advice.

Coronel posed the question facing new media around the world: How do you get revenue and how do you make news reporting sustainable?

Chen Juhong, editor in chief of the innovative and jam-packed Chinese news portal qq.com, said 60 percent of the Tencent site’s users don’t get any of their news on paper.

Chen, an alumnus of East-West Center media programs, said for news websites to survive, they need to be professional, pay attention to how people consume information, and keep up with user-generated content.

The basic qq.com site is free but Tencent gets revenue by charging users for “more charming” profiles or blogs and for playing games. And, it has paid advertisers who get interaction and user-data with their ads.

Steven Gan, Malaysiakini founding editor, said the Malaysian site knew readership would drop when it started charging $6 a month for access to its stories, and it did. But now, he said, 60 percent of revenue comes from subscribers and 40 percent from ads. Malasiakini has built its reputation on unfiltered, uncensored reporting in Malaysia.

Tarun Tejpal, editor in chief and publisher of India’s Tehelka news magazine, said his publication does not make money but his chief talent is to gather investors in what he calls the world’s most crowded media market. He appeals to people’s responsibility as citizens to pay for subscriptions.

“I publish on paper because in India the politicians don’t read the web,” Tejpal said.

Tejpal, known for his muckraking investigative reports, started Tehelka as a news website in 2000. Its success at what Tejpal calls “public interest journalism” led to investors who now fund his Tehelka news magazine.

New Zealand journalist Julie Starr’s AllAbouttheStory.com is an online marketplace for journalists seeking publication of their work.

Starr said New Zealand is too small for general news sites to survive on advertising. Her site allows freelance writers to sell their word wares, either for syndication or exclusive publication rights. Only buyers have access to the articles.

“We aim to put talented writers and content creators in touch with quality newspapers, magazines and web publications,” a notice on the site says.

In describing her Internet marketplace, Starr added, “I’m not counting the cash just yet.”

Reginald Chua, South China Morning Post editor in Hong Kong, said new media outlets have to find focus to “bring value, adding something every day to a continuing pool of knowledge.”

He said news media have to provide more than just traditional news.

“We have gotten rid of the word ‘paper.’ I think we should get rid of the word ‘news’,” Chua said in one of the more provocative statements at the conference.

Chua’s suggestion to go beyond news underscored the depth of the problem for journalists – especially newspaper journalists – stuck in traditional roles.

Joshua Benton, Nieman Journalism Lab director at Harvard University and an alumnus of East-West Center media programs, said media need to find new ways to absorb and reformat information for the broad array of devices people are using to get their news.

But he said they will “come up against such entrenched and brilliant companies as Google who are doing that sort of thing themselves.”

Thomas Crampton, Asia Pacific director of 360 Digital Influence at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, said that until media can figure out ways to get people to stay on their sites by creating experiences “that people just want to live in for a while, it’s going to be really hard.” He said business media have an advantage because their audiences have the money to pay.

Historic challenges to media such as censorship, self-censorship, and dangers of the professions were also discussed in various panels.

• JMSC Director Yuen Ying Chan, in welcoming delegates to the conference, said Hong Kong’s media remain free and vibrant under the “one country, two systems” model. She said Chinese state media control and the Great Firewall stop at the border, making the city a good listening post for understanding China.
  

  Mak Yin Ting

• Mak Yin Ting, chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, agreed that Hong Kong enjoys considerable freedom of expression, but she said media are exercising less freedom now than they did under British colonial control before 1997, largely because of self-censorship. Few articles on topics sensitive to China such as the Falun Gong, Tibet or Taiwan, are reported from Hong Kong now, Mak said.
• Phelim Kine, Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong, said self-censorship is common throughout China. “People have a sense of what can and can’t be reported – and they have a tendency not to push the envelope,” he said.
  

  Phelim Kine

• Kunda Dixit, publisher of Himalmedia and editor of Nepali Times, said self-censorship is more dangerous than outright censorship because readers know to disregard publications that are openly censored.

• Amalia Cabusao, editor in chief of the Mindanao Times in the Philippines, told delegates the chilling tale of the massacre of 58 people, including 34 journalists, in a political dispute in Mindanao. She said new media spread the word quickly, forcing the government to act. But Mindanao is still tense, with bombings and control of some areas by various rebel groups.
  

  Kunda Dixit

• Shyam Tekwani, an associate professor at the U.S. Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu, Hawaii, said the rise of new media in Sri Lanka has done away with useful news interviews. Other problems he cited are the absence of needed training in conflict journalism and the press taking sides, especially in regional conflicts.

A panel of lawyers and media legal defense experts offered a hopeful note and some help for beleaguered journalists in the region.

• Aung Htoo of the Burma Lawyers’ Council in Sweden said citizen journalists in Burma use electronic devices to circumvent tight military control and spread news the government may not want people to hear.
  

  H.R. Dipendra

• H.R. Dipendra, network coordinator for the South East Asia Media Legal Defense Network, cited cases where international observers had attended hearings to help the arrested journalists. Although these journalists are not always successful in gaining justice, at least the prosecuting regimes know others around the world are interested, Dipendra said.

• Doreen Weisenhous, director of JMSC’s Media Law Project, summed up the overall message for journalists: “You’re not alone.”

Photo credits: Journalism and Media Studies Centre, University of Hong Kong

(For full coverage of “Reporting New Realities in Asia and the Pacific,” including videos of complete speeches, photos, radio broadcasts, news summaries and blogs, click here.)