去年年初以来，新冠病毒疫情影响全球，各行各业受到严峻打击。本已经营困难的香港报业，面对媒体市场广告收入大幅下跌，犹如雪上加霜。不少报章盈利减少，甚至出现亏损，部分更被迫裁员以节省成本。

 由於办报成本高，本地报章近年都致力探索新的经营模式，包括发展网上广告，以求逆境求存。去年底，香港报业公会结合各会员报馆的力量，推动成立电子广告销售平台「报网通」，旨在为客户提供一个一站式投放报章网上广告途径，为同业提高经营效益。成立以来，「报网通」已爲参与报章带来亮丽的收益，为广告客户达致美满的宣传效果。

然而，受制於社交媒体及搜索平台的掠夺式经营手法，本地报章在发展网上广告时，面对极爲不公平的竞争。这些社交媒体和搜索平台以新闻内容结合其他资讯取得非常高的流量，再以其近乎垄断的营运规模占取绝大部份的收益，令新闻媒体成为多劳少得的牺牲者。香港的《版权条例》未能跟上时代的步伐，无法为内容提供者提供所需的保障。在庞大的商业垄断运作面前，本地报章难以从原创内容取得合理收益。维护版权成本高、回报低，其结果不单是业者面临困境，更扰乱了舆论生态环境。随著报业编采资源枯竭，从业员待遇日益低迷，对社会的恶性影响日益明显。

作为网媒冒起之源的西方，已对这种不正常的媒体生态予以纠正。澳洲国会在2月25日正式通过了《新闻媒体议价法令》，目的在於解决新闻媒体与数位平台之间谈判势力的不平衡。这法案对全球的科网和新闻生态影响深远，既打击科网霸权，又能维护新闻价值。同样被科技巨擘垄断网络搜寻和社交媒体平台的香港，亟需建立一个能够让报业公平竞争的营商环境。香港报业公会促请港府□□□s新闻付费政策，令科企就引用新闻内容向新闻机构支付合理费用，帮助处境困难的新闻业界取得合理回报，藉此维护新闻价值和新闻专业。

香港报业公会向来坚持以社会公共利益为导向，通过维护新闻素质及坚守专业操守精神，推进社会发展。在此，我谨代表公会感谢社会各界，尤其是所有评审委员及各家赞助机构，支持我们每年举办香港新闻大奖，表扬优秀的新闻报道。衷心祝贺2020年度的得奖者，亦感谢其他新闻界同业对专业的贡献和付出。展望未来，香港报业公会定必继续推动业界发展，提升业内的专业水准。

Keith Kam
Chairman, The Newspaper Society of Hong Kong

Since early last year, the Covid-19 pandemic has affected the whole world and all walks of life. Hong Kong’s newspaper industry, which was already struggling before the pandemic, has fared badly as advertising revenue plunged. Many newspapers have seen sharp reductions in their profits or suffered losses, and some have even been forced to cut cost by laying off staff.

Due to the high cost of operation, local newspapers have been striving to explore new business models in recent years, including the development of online advertising. At the end of last year, members of The Newspaper Society of Hong Kong pulled their strength together to raise the competitiveness of the industry by setting up Newsoc Hub, a one-stop online advertising platform. It has since boosted the revenue of participating newspapers and achieved satisfactory promotion for advertisers.

However, in developing online advertising, local newspapers face highly unfair competition posed by the predatory business practices of social media and search engine platforms. By combining news content with other information, these platforms have built up a high volume of traffic to their sites. They then exploit the scale of their dominance to get the lion’s share of the revenue generated, leaving the local news media with a meagre return that does not correspond to the amount of resources deployed to produce the news content. Hong Kong’s outdated Copyright Ordinance has failed to keep up with the times and is unable to provide the necessary protection that content producers need. In the face of massive business manipulation, local media are unable to obtain a reasonable return for the original content they produce. The high cost and low return of producing and safeguarding news content has caused not just hardship to the media operators but also worsened the media ecology. As editorial resources dry up and remuneration for journalists drops, the negative impact on the society is becoming more and more apparent.

In the West, where web-based media originated, efforts have been made to rectify this anomaly in the media industry. In February, the Australian parliament passed the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code, which seeks to address the unbalanced bargaining power between the news media and digital platforms. The law has a profound impact on the technology giants and the ecology of the news industry by targeting the hegemony of those giants and safeguarding the value of news. As Hong Kong has also been subject to the predatory practices of the technology giants and social media platforms, there is a dire need to create a business environment with a level playing field for the newspaper industry. The Newspaper Society of Hong Kong calls on the government to start studying the introduction of a “payment for news” policy so that the technology giants will have to pay news outlets for using their content. Only then would the news industry be able to secure a reasonable return and safeguard the value of news and journalism.

The Newspaper Society of Hong Kong has always steadfastly upheld the principles of putting the public interest first and promoting social progress by safeguarding the quality of journalism and abiding by the professional code of conduct. On behalf of the society, I would like to convey my heartfelt gratitude to our sponsors and panel of judges for supporting our efforts to recognize outstanding works of journalism through the Hong Kong News Awards every year. Congratulations to all the winners of this year’s award. My thanks also go to other members of the newspaper industry for their contributions to the profession. Looking ahead, The Newspaper Society of Hong Kong will continue to foster the development of the industry by raising professional standards.