HK01 () is a Hong Kong-based online news portal launched by

Yu Pun-hoi Yu Pun-hoi (; born 1958), commonly known as P H Yu, is a Hong Kong entrepreneur in the information technology, cinema, culture and media industries. He is the Chairman of the Board and largest shareholder of Hong Kong-listed Nan Hai Corporation ...

, a former chairman of the ''

Ming Pao ''Ming Pao'' () is a Chinese-language newspaper published by Media Chinese International in Hong Kong. In the 1990s, ''Ming Pao'' established four overseas branches in North America; each provides independent reporting on local news and colle ...

''. It is operated by HK01 Company Limited, established in June 2015. The website went live on 11 January 2016. It publishes a weekly paper every Friday, the first edition of which was released on 11 March 2016. The company has a staff of approximately 700.

Circulation

As of October 2021, there were 1.7 million unique visitors viewing on HK01's websites and mobile applications on a daily basis, which made it the most influential news media in Hong Kong. Its mobile application was the most downloaded news app in both Apple App Store and Google Play Store in Hong Kong for more than 45 months since March 2018.

Political stance and editorial opinion

HK01 claims to be an "advocacy media." It claims to aim at a third path in the political fights between the pro-democracy and pro-establishment camps. Its founder

is a pro-Beijing businessman, who write opinions for the ''01 Opinion'' column, while the staff of the media are more inclined to the pro-democracy camp. According to a 2016 survey, most Hong Kong college students believed that HK01 was a neutral media. While it was criticised by the

Hong Kong Free Press Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) is a free, non-profit news website based in Hong Kong. It was co-founded in 2015 by Tom Grundy, who believed that the territory's press freedom was in decline, to provide an alternative to the dominant English-languag ...

and VJMedia as a pro-Beijing media, its reporting was also described by

pro-Beijing The pro-Beijing camp, pro-establishment camp, pro-government camp or pro-China camp refers to a political alignment in Hong Kong which generally supports the policies of the Beijing central government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) t ...

politician

Ng Chau-pei Stanley Ng Chau-pei (born February 1970) is a Hong Kong pro-Beijing camp, pro-Beijing politician and trade unionist and the incumbent President and former Chairman of the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (HKFTU), the largest trade union in ...

to be anti-China.

Controversies

Coverage of Tiananmen Massacre anniversary

In 2017, HK01 was criticised by the

Hong Kong Journalists Association The Hong Kong Journalists Association ( Chinese: 香港記者協會) is a Hong Kong association that represents journalists in Hong Kong. Established in 1968, the association acts as a trade union for journalists by seeking to improve work ...

(HKJA) for deleting an article covering release of new details of the

Tiananmen Square massacre The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...

by the UK Government Archives shortly after the article's publication. Pressure from founder Yu Pun-hoi was suspected to have motivated the removal. The article was later republished with a rebuttal, saying that mistakes had been made when verifying the information contained in the original version and denying there had been self-censorship.

Stance on Taiwan and Hong Kong independence

In 2018, HK01 was again criticised by the HKJA over its tagging an article it published about

Taiwanese independence The Taiwan independence movement is a political movement which advocates the formal declaration of an independent and sovereign Taiwanese state, as opposed to Chinese unification or the status quo in Cross-Strait relations. Currently, Tai ...

with an anti-independence disclaimer. The company maintains a black-list containing pro-independence parties and groups in Hong Kong whose events it will not attend, with whom it will not form partnerships, and from whom it will accept advertising.

References

External links

* {{Newspapers in Hong Kong Hong Kong news websites Chinese-language newspapers published in Hong Kong Publications established in 2016 2016 establishments in Hong Kong