Media broadcasts SWAT team preparations, operation

Live Hong Kong media coverage of a police assault on the apartment of a murder suspect stirred a debate on media ethics on Monday.

The 51-year-old jobless Li Tak-yan took his own life on Sunday after allegedly gunning down his neighbor Liu Kai-chung, 43, on Saturday night in Kai Ching Estate in Kowloon Bay, Hong Kong-based Ming Pao Daily reported.

TVB News and Hong Kong cable TV networks began broadcasting live on Sunday as the elite Special Duties Unit (SDU) prepared to storm the apartment.

Other local media joined in the coverage, displaying or describing how officers lowered themselves on ropes.

Police reportedly used stun grenades before finding Li inside after he fatally shot himself.

The first high-profile "Flying Tigers" operation in 11 years drew extensive media coverage.

Yet as police investigated the case on Monday, some citizens questioned the appropriateness of the live coverage and announced that they planned to complain to the Office of the Communications Authority, Hong Kong's daily paper The Sun reported.

"What if the suspect got to know the police's operational strategy through watching the television broadcast in his apartment?" an online user was quoted as saying by the Wen Wei Po newspaper.

"There's no problem with live coverage as long as the police allow it, and this is the unwritten rule of Hong Kong's media," Michael Chugani, a Hong Kong-based media critic, told the Global Times.

Live coverage has also become a new standard in today's journalism, and it is not the media's responsibility to assess the impact of their coverage, Chugani said.

Even if the suspect was watching television news, the police could handle the situation, James To Kun-sun, chairman of the Panel on Security at Legislative Council, was quoted as saying by Wen Wei Po.

The Hong Kong media are in much closer contact with police than the public imagine, said Lee Ka-man, assistant professor at the Department of Journalism and Communication of Hong Kong Shue Yan University.

"In cases like this, the police normally have already briefed reporters before they cover the incident," Lee said.

Hong Kong has a relatively low crime rate and it was natural for the incident to cause a sensation, Lee argued. "Public interest justifies the extensive media coverage," he said.

It was important for the public to know the latest development, he said, especially when the incident took place near a cruise terminal that might also affect tourists.