What is Hong Kong Free Press?

Hong Kong Free Press is a new, English language news source seeking to unite critical voices and provide quality analysis and credible reporting on local and national affairs.

Free and independent, HKFP arrives amid rising concerns over declining press freedom in Hong Kong and during an important time in the city’s constitutional development.

An urgent need:

• An urgent need: Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the International Federation of Journalists, Hong Kong Journalists Association and Pen America have all reported on the recent decline of press freedom in Hong Kong. With attacks on journalists, advertisers withdrawing from media critical of the establishment along with the existential pressures facing the wider industry, it is evermore vital that the territory has an independent platform for critical voices to be heard.

An opportunity:

• An opportunity: Press freedom concerns are even more defined among English media as there is little competition and less incentive to innovate. Hong Kong is not subject to stringent censorship laws seen in the mainland and English writers have a wider international reach and are less vulnerable to attack. In the first-and-last free corner of China, there is a thirst for brave, independent journalism that few are exploiting.

A platform for post-Occupy Hong Kong:

• A platform for post-Occupy Hong Kong: In addition to highlighting the lack of plurality in the local media landscape, the Umbrella Movement protests exposed a gap between the Chinese and English media. Some stories, themes and angles featured in the Chinese media were missed or ignored by the English press – other stories took days to be reported on. The are multiple independent Chinese outlets but a free, unfiltered online English news source that bridges this gap is overdue.

An innovative website:

• The HKFP website has a modern, secure and responsive design. Beautiful on any device, with infinite scrolling and built-in options for charts, tabs, quote boxes and full-width image galleries.

Safe and secure:

• We will provide a PGP encryption channel for leaks/secure communication. HKFP will be the first news outlet in HK to offer a whistleblower channel with source protection.

• Cloudflare and iThemes Security protection will ensure a secure platform against cyber attack.

Content:

• We will launch with a focus on Hong Kong breaking news. As we grow, we aim to provide more comment and analysis, investigative journalism, regional coverage and explainers.

• News feeds will be accessible on the platform you use. Content on Facebook and Twitter will be managed by staff. Articles will also be automatically available on Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Flipboard, Feedly. We will also apply for Google News inclusion and will deliver direct-to-inbox news via email and whatsapp.

Little competition:

Little – if any – competition:• SCMP.com is behind a paywall, owned by the Kuok Brothers - press freedom/ownership concerns.• EJInsight is more business and analysis/magazine-based. Poor website, social presence. Translated

content. Operates office hours only. Press freedom/ownership concerns.• The Standard – poor website, social presence. Owned by the Sing Tao - press freedom/ownership

concerns.• Coconuts & Localiiz do some news, but are not direct competitors as they are a blog and listings

website respectively.

Our team:

• Four full-time members of staff to begin with. A network of contributors, supporters and experienced guest editors also on board.

Funding:

• Private backing.• Crowd-funding.• Display advertising.• Sponsorship.• Native advertising.• Native platform advertising.• Donation buttons.• Micro-donations.• Bitcoin donation.• Events.• Merchandise.

Also considering:• Agency/content provision.• Content-sharing links.

• Aiming to reach 1 million unique users by the end of 2015.

Timeline:

• December 2014-January 2015: Build.• February-April 2015: Rallying support, contributors,

registering company/bank account.• May: Crowd-funding stage, publicity.• June-September: Bootstrapping.

Crowd-funding:

• Crowd-funding begins May 9th.