The US economy and monetary policy was the topic of discussion when Dr. James Bullard, President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, spoke at the FCC on May 22.

Watch the full video here

A modern, comprehensive and transparent archives law that covers all public bodies is long overdue in Hong Kong, argued the director of Hong Kong University’s Social Science Research Centre in response to the Law Reform Commission’s looking at legislation guaranteeing public access to information.

L-R: Don Brech, Prof. John Bacon-Shone, and Stacy Belcher Lee. Photo: Sarah Graham/FCC

Professor John Bacon-Shone added that record keeping was an essential element of an effective and accountable government when he appeared at the April 30 club lunch as part of a panel discussing the need for an archives law.

The Law Reform Commission has come up with a report looking at both the need for an archives law and legislation guaranteeing public access to information. The report has gone out to public consultation. Some journalists, historians and archivists think the proposals are too weak.

Joining Prof. Bacon-Shone were Don Brech, a member of the Archives Action Group and former Director of the HK Government Records Service; and HKU University Archivist and member of the Law Reform Commission Archives Law Sub-committee, Stacy Belcher.

One point of contention among panelists was the potential to charge members of the public for access to information. Prof. Bacon-Shone said there was no cost attached to copying digital records, as opposed to a small cost for photocopying paper records.

However, Belcher argued that there was in fact a significant cost to keep digital records, including electronic storage fees, and administrative costs in transferring and archiving digital information.

Watch the full talk here.

The personal stories of some of those who fled Shanghai in 1949 during the Communist Revolution feature in a new book, the first of its kind to be printed in English.

Author Helen Zia talked about her new book at the FCC. Photo: Sarah Graham/FCC

Author Helen Zia interviewed hundreds of Chinese exiles over 12 years in her bid to reveal the struggles faced by those living in what until then had been Asia’s most cosmopolitan city. In the end, she selected the stories of four people from differing backgrounds to feature in the book, Last Boat Out of Shanghai: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Fled Mao’s Revolution.

Zia told the FCC Club Breakfast on March 28 that her mother had always told her that she’d left China on the last boat out of Shanghai. Over the years, Zia said she met many exiles who all also repeated the claim that they were on that last boat.

She said that having told the stories of those who fled and the horrors they witnessed during the upheaval, she hoped that people would be more tolerant of refugees and appreciate their contribution to the societies they seek safety in.

Read more about Helen Zia’s book here.

Watch the full talk here.

The digital revolution that has disrupted journalism is still in its infancy, says former Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger, and news organisations need to adapt if they are to survive.

Former Guardian editor, Alan Rusbridger, is interviewed by FCC President Florence de Changy on March 27. Photo: Sarah Graham/FCC

Gone are the days when reporters hit ‘send’ on a story and head to the nearest pub, he told FCC members at a packed club dinner on March 27. Now the story begins at the point a journalist publishes their article. He cited Glenn Greenwald, the American journalist whose work breaking the Edward Snowden NSA leaks in 2013 earned the Guardian a Pulitzer Prize for public service. Greenwald famously interacts with his legions of readers as soon as his stories are published, enabling him to develop the piece further.

Rusbridger’s book, Breaking News: The Remaking of Journalism and Why It Matters Now, asks vital questions about the purpose of journalism at a time when 4 billion people can communicate with each other at the touch of a button. Questions like ‘is journalism is public service?’, and ‘is journalism better than the internet?’ are key themes of the book in which Rusbridger looks back at how the trade has evolved over the last few decades.

He cited divisive topics like Brexit and the election of US President Donald Trump as having had an impact – largely negative – on the way news organisations approached stories. He spoke of the “bullying, hectoring front pages” of the British press during the lead up to the referendum on Europe, adding that the role of the media should have been to inform citizens to help them make a decision.

Such behaviour, coupled with the rise of social media as an aggregator of news and a growing frustration with the ruling elite, had led to disassociation among readers who felt they were no longer being heard. The knock-on effect has been a consistent drop in revenue among most news organisations, leaving them scratching around for the business model that works for them.

Rusbridger himself steered the Guardian through the early days of the digital revolution and by the time he stepped down in 2015, a membership model had been established that saved the newspaper from the prospect of folding. Today, he said, the Guardian has £1 billion in the bank and expects to break even this year.

“There’s a new model beginning to develop,” Rusbridger said, “and it strikes me that all that investigative journalism that we did turned out to be the business model.”

The relationship between China and Africa, seen through the eyes of artists, was explained at the FCC as Art Basel kicked off in Hong Kong.

Left to right: McKinsey’s Georges Desvaux, Meg Maggio, Director, Pékin Fine Arts, Beijing and Hong Kong; and photographic artist Pieter Hugo. Photo: Sarah Graham/FCC

A panel featuring a photographic artist, a curator, and an expert on African and Asian growth strategies discussed the evolution of contemporary art in Asia.

Panelists included Natasha Becker, who curates exhibitions in Cape Town’s Goodman Gallery, as well as organising public programs in global art history at Clark Art Institute in Massachusetts.

Photographic artist Pieter Hugo discussed how his upbringing as South African apartheid ended influenced him to create portrait photography across Africa’s marginalized communities, in places including Rwanda, exploring how history had left its mark on the younger generation.

Watch the full talk here.