I’m part of a ChinaFile debate on the state of the South China Morning Post. The whole conversation is here.

I make five urgent points I feel the newspaper needs to act on immediately:

1.    Write and publish a strong code of ethics and standards making clear that news decisions are taken without regard to politics or business interests.

2.    Hold the paper and editors accountable to that code by hiring an independent ombudsman or public editor or by appointing an independent board of trustees to oversee editorial independence.

3.    Learn to be open about decisions and missteps, building trust through transparency.

4.    Hire and train reporters who can build the paper’s reputation by good, solid reporting.

5.    Have editors who encourage reporting, guard against errors and having making the paper’s growth their only concern.

My full contribution is below:

CAN CHINA’S BEST NEWSPAPER SURVIVE?

By David Schlesinger

Pity the South China Morning Post!

Once called the world’s most profitable newspaper, its weekly jobs classified section was the size of a city’s telephone directory, the ever-flowing money from ads supporting a large and well-paid news staff.

Times changed, ads disappeared, owners changed and changed again.

Then, when it found its own billionaire owner-champion, it wasn’t a free-market liberal sitting in the US like the Washington Post’s Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame, but China’s own online shopping king, Jack Ma, whose mainland business and connections immediately raised the specter if not the reality of influence and interference from the Chinese Communist Party.

The question of whether the SCMP can survive and thrive actually contains packed within it several separate issues.

The first is whether an English-language newspaper based in Hong Kong, where English is rapidly being pushed to third-class status behind the native Cantonese and the Mandarin of mainland business, can ever realize its ambitions to be a regional or even global source of news on Greater China.

The second is whether a newspaper owned by a China-based company and mogul can ever escape the bounds and even stigma of its proprietorship to do good, quality journalism and to be appreciated for doing so.

So far, frankly, the paper has made a number of serious missteps. An early hagiographic article on Ma’s Alibaba certainly raised questions. More seriously still, the paper published under an anonymous “staff reporter” byline a tendentiously acquired phone interview with detained Chinese activist Zhao Wei in which she “regretted” her actions – at a time when neither her husband nor lawyer could reach her or confirm her whereabouts. Most recently, the SCMP abruptly stopped its Chinese web edition and killed its archive.

All of these missteps, in fact, could have been avoided.

Any mogul serious about running a respectable media operation must make clear that his business should be subject to the same scrutiny as any other – and that the potential conflict of interest must be explained. Any good editor should leap to that challenge.

The Zhao Wei story could have been made into a good one if the reporter had put his or her name to it, if the way the “interview” came about had been explained, if the restrictions on the interview were revealed to readers, if proper background had been put into the story.

The closing of the Chinese edition in fact probably was a sensible business decision – the SCMP has never been known for its Chinese-language coverage; it was blocked in the mainland anyway limiting its reach and commercial appeal; the Chinese-language market in Hong Kong and Taiwan is arguably overserved. But these things need to be explained; they need to be done in a measured way; and archives need to be preserved – otherwise you are simply asking for conspiracy theories.

For the Post to survive and thrive it needs to take action urgently:

1.    Write and publish a strong code of ethics and standards making clear that news decisions are taken without regard to politics or business interests.

2.    Hold the paper and editors accountable to that code by hiring an independent ombudsman or public editor or by appointing an independent board of trustees to oversee editorial independence.

3.    Learn to be open about decisions and missteps, building trust through transparency.

4.    Hire and train reporters who can build the paper’s reputation by good, solid reporting.

5.    Have editors who encourage reporting, guard against errors and having making the paper’s growth their only concern.

Finally, the new ownership structure unfortunately will always raise questions about the Post’s ability to thrive. Unlike Bezos who bought the Washington Post personally, without involving Amazon, Ma bought the SCMP through Alibaba, a listed company.

Should Alibaba’s own vast China business ever be threatened by Beijing’s unhappiness at the newspaper’s reporting, the company’s board would surely have a fiduciary duty to ensure that a frisky tail did not kill off an otherwise healthy dog. One concrete action to take would be to change this structure and insulate Alibaba and the newspaper from each other

When Jack Ma bought the SCMP, he said about editorial independence: “Trust us”. However, blind trust is not enough. For the paper to survive and thrive, readers need to say: “Show us”.

Show us through good reporting and writing.

Show us through good editing.

Show us through editorial standards.

Show us through honesty and transparency.