Kevin Sinclair (journalist)
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Kevin Maxwell Sinclair,
MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...
, (12 December 1942 – 23 December 2007) was a New Zealand journalist and author who spent more than 50 years reporting the news, over 40 of those in Hong Kong.


Early life

Sinclair was born in Thornton, Wellington, New Zealand, to 16-year-old Margaret Hocking of Cornish extraction and a mixed Polynesian father who left, never to return, when he was three. A decade later, his mother remarried, and Sinclair did not get along with his stepfather. It was with some relief that, upon completing high school, he left home to take up an opening as a labourer-cadet with the Forestry Service at the age of 16. At 14, he was deeply affected by Edgar Snow's glowing 1937 account of the
Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victoriou ...
, '' Red Star Over China'', later rating it the book that most influenced his outlook.


Career in journalism

Sinclair started as a 16-year-old copy boy at the Wellington ''Evening Post'' and then ''The Dominion'' for a year. Having left New Zealand in 1961, he lucked into his first job in Australia as the sole employee (and editor) of the south Queensland tourist-targeted rag, the ''Surfers Paradise Guide'', and, by 1962, he was working as a reporter at Brisbane's ''The Telegraph''. He spent a year crime reporting at Sydney's ''The Daily Telegraph'' from 1964, another year back at ''The Dominion'', and then joined the sensationalist ''
New Zealand Truth ''New Zealand Truth'' was a tabloid newspaper published weekly in New Zealand from 1905 to 2013. History ''New Zealand Truth'' was founded in 1905 by Australian John Norton in Wellington, as a New Zealand edition of his Sydney ''Truth'', aim ...
''. He finally left his second stint at ''The Daily Telegraph'' to join ''The Star'', another sensationalist tabloid, in Hong Kong, as news editor, in 1968. He arrived on the SS ''Oronsay'' in the spring of that year. Sinclair described the quality of his journalism in the 60s as "disgraceful" and "irresponsible" while taking to it with unbridled and unashamed alacrity. The ''
New Zealand Truth ''New Zealand Truth'' was a tabloid newspaper published weekly in New Zealand from 1905 to 2013. History ''New Zealand Truth'' was founded in 1905 by Australian John Norton in Wellington, as a New Zealand edition of his Sydney ''Truth'', aim ...
'', where he had been a reporter, was a
training ground for generations of journalistic hoodlums, practised evaders of the truth and reporters who lived by skillful exaggeration and downright lies.
On seeing out his two-year contract at ''The Star'' in 1970, he moved to the '' Hong Kong Standard'' as news editor. In 1972, he became news editor at the ''
South China Morning Post The ''South China Morning Post'' (''SCMP''), with its Sunday edition, the ''Sunday Morning Post'', is a Hong Kong-based English-language newspaper owned by Alibaba Group. Founded in 1903 by Tse Tsan-tai and Alfred Cunningham, it has remained ...
'', and, after a July 1978 demotion resulting from alcoholism, continued on in the newsroom till 1986, returning in 2003 to write for the Post's 100th anniversary publication, ''Post Impressions''. Sinclair was the author of some 24 books. His first, ''No Cure, No Pay: Salvage in the South China Seas'' was published by SCMP Books in 1981 and his last, ''Tell Me A Story: Forty Years of Newspapering in Hong Kong and China'', also by SCMP Books, was published shortly before his death.


Political standpoint

Sinclair was deeply distrustful of democracy for Hong Kong, believing that one man, one vote would turn it into a "give-it-away society". In 2007, Sinclair stated that he would "sooner vote for a rabid dog" than a democrat. He scoffed at suggestions of future communist repression and the jailing of dissidents.


Personal life

Sinclair married his first wife, Robyn, in Sydney in 1963, but the marriage only lasted four years. He married Kathleen "Kit" Allred in Hong Kong on 16 December 1972. Allred was a volunteer with the US Peace Corps who had moved to Hong Kong from Korea three years earlier. They had two children, David and Kiri. Sinclair died at the age of 65 after a long battle with cancer. Four days before his death, he had attended a book signing at Hong Kong's
Foreign Correspondents' Club Foreign Correspondents' Club is a group of clubs for foreign correspondents and other journalists. Some clubs are members only, and some are open to the public. Cambodia The Foreign Correspondents' Club in Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia, is a ...
- an event even attended by Hong Kong Chief Executive
Donald Tsang Sir Donald Tsang Yam-kuen (; born 7 October 1944) is a former Hong Kong civil servant who served as the second Chief Executive of Hong Kong from 2005 to 2012. Tsang joined the colonial civil service as an Executive Officer in 1967, occupyi ...
who he counted among his many friends, including Singapore's Prime Minister
Lee Kwan Yew Lee Kuan Yew (16 September 1923 – 23 March 2015), born Harry Lee Kuan Yew, often referred to by his initials LKY, was a Singaporean lawyer and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Singapore between 1959 and 1990, and Secretary-General o ...
and billionaire transport magnate Sir Tang Shiu-kin among his friends. A celebration of his life was held at the Hong Kong Police Officers' Club on 7 January 2008 attended by 300 government officials, close friends and colleagues.


Honours

In 1983, Sinclair received an MBE from Queen Elizabeth for his contribution to the community through
journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation (profes ...
. He was named "Person Of The Year" for 2007 in a poll run by the Government-owned radio station, RTHK.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sinclair, Kevin 1942 births 2007 deaths Members of the Order of the British Empire Deaths from cancer in Hong Kong New Zealand emigrants to Hong Kong Hong Kong journalists 20th-century journalists