Hong Kong journalist says Wall Street Journal fired her for leading press advocacy group

The new head of a Hong Kong journalists’ association has claimed she was fired by The Wall Street Journal soon after being elected to the post.

Selina Cheng was told her job with the American newspaper had been terminated due to restructuring in the company.

She, however, said she believed the termination was linked to her supervisor’s request to withdraw from the election to chair the Hong Kong Journalists Association, or HKJA, a trade union that also advocates for press freedom.

"I am appalled that the first press conference I’m giving as HKJA’s new chair is to announce that I was fired for taking up this position in a press union,” Ms Cheng said on Wednesday. She was elected last month.

Ms Cheng claimed she was pressed by her employer about three weeks ago to withdraw from the election and quit the board of the association, which she had been on since 2021.

After declining the request, Ms Cheng said, she was told the role would be “incompatible with my employment at The Wall Street Journal”.

"The editor said that the employees of the Journal shouldn’t be seen as advocating for press freedom in a place like Hong Kong even though they can in Western countries where it is already established," she said.

The media industry in the former British colony returned to China in 1997 has suffered major setbacks since it imposed a national security law in 2020 following mass street protests.

Ms Cheng noted that the Journal has been supportive of Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for the newspaper who has been jailed in Russia on espionage charges that he, his employer and the US government vehemently deny.

“This is why I’m deeply shocked that senior editors at the paper would actively violate their employees’ human rights by preventing them from advocating for press freedom that the Journal’s reporters rely on to work,” she said.

Dow Jones, which publishes the paper, confirmed on Wednesday that it made “some personnel changes” but refused to comment on individual cases.

“The Wall Street Journal has been and continues to be a fierce and vocal advocate for press freedom in Hong Kong and around the world,” the company said in a statement.

Ms Cheng covered China’s automobile and energy sectors for the Journal, which plans to move her role out of Hong Kong, The Guardian reported.

After the imposition of the draconian security law, which has allegedly been weaponised to silence dissent in the city, two local news outlets known for critical coverage of the government, Apple Daily and Stand News, were forced to shut down after the arrest of senior management, including Apple Daily publisher Jimmy Lai.

In March, Hong Kong enacted another security law to punish espionage, disclosure of state secrets and “collusion with external forces”. It left many journalists worried about further erosion in media freedom.

A week after the law was enacted, Radio Free Asia, which is funded by the US, announced its Hong Kong bureau had been closed because of safety concerns.

In June, secretary for security Chris Tang said HKJA lacked legitimacy and accused it of having stood with the protesters in 2019.

The Journal faced pressure from the city’s government last July when it received three letters by Mr Tang over its editorial or opinion pieces.

The paper announced in May that its staff was shifting “its centre of gravity” in the region from Hong Kong to Singapore. The decision resulted in some staffers losing their jobs in the Chinese financial hub.

Ms Cheng, however, was not affected.

The HKJA said the Journal risked hastening the decline of what space remained for independent journalism by pressuring its employees to not take part in the association.

Other board members of the association have also been pressured by their employers to stand down, it said in a statement without giving details.

Hong Kong was ranked 135th out of 180 countries and territories in the latest World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders.