New Media Workshop

Based on some things that have been popping up in the delicous feed and on a few blogs I just want to make sure everybody is clear.

The District Council Elections, to be held on November 18th, are the subject of our class reporting project.

Key facts:

The nomination period for the 2007 District Council election will run from October 2 to 15.

There will be a total of 405 seats up for grabs in the 18 districts in the November 18 poll.

The Legco By-Election, set for December 2nd after classes end, is something completely different.

That is the race getting most of the media attention, in which we may see a face-off between Anson Chan and Regina Ip.

As I mentioned in class, there are several reasons that we are focusing on the District Council elections and not the Legco by-election:

1. The District Council election fits with our class schedule and the Legco by-election does not.
2. The Legco by-election will be a total media circus, making it impossible for students to get interviews with the candidates and difficult to do truly original on-the-ground reporting.
3. Because the district councils are Hong Kong’s most basic level of government, the candidates and issues will be much more accessible to students who want to cover the election with original sound and pictures from the scene as well as text.
4. The DC election is likely to be very under-covered by the local media, making it possible for all of you to make a unique and valuable contribution to public knowledge and understanding about Hong Kong’s local politics.

Our former BJ student Fion Li did a project about students running in the Hong Kong district council elections. Click here for the first part, then the sidebar will take you to the rest. She posted a collection of useful links and resources here.

Hong Kong political scientist Michael Degolyer recently wrote a sharply worded essay about why the Hong Kong government is holding these two different levels of elections at different times. Here is a news article in The Standard about the decision to separate the elections. (I smell a possible story angle…)

Remember that DC election day, November 18th, counts as a class for everybody – as has been noted prominently on the class schedule, and has been announced in class.

Please hit the comments section of this post or send an e-mail to the class google group if you have any questions or thoughts about this.