Speeches and Articles by U.S. Consul General James B. Cunningham

Remarks to the Pulitzer Prize Winners' Workshop
Sponsored by Hong Kong Baptist University
By James B. Cunningham
Consul General of the United States
17 October 2007
(as delivered)

Thank you very much. I'm really thrilled, actually, to be with all of you today. When Professor Huang first told me about the idea for this project, six or seven months ago, I immediately was thrilled at the idea of being part of this. This workshop is a really interesting and important effort, to bring these vibrant and important Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists together with practicing journalists and all of these journalism students, from both Hong Kong and the Mainland. It's quite exciting, really. And that is why, as I understand it, so many of the students have expressed such keen interest and enthusiasm for being involved in this project. So I'm really glad to be here with you today.

I want to thank and congratulate the Hong Kong Baptist University on this excellent program, and also to applaud the Hong Kong Economic Journal for having made it possible by funding it.

It's a great idea to bring US journalists together to discuss with people in this part of the world how we Americans work at the craft, trade, and profession of journalism, and to share perspectives. It's particularly fitting that this should take place in Hong Kong, a special part of China. Here, local journalists and academics and their mainland counterparts are free to discuss journalistic practices and ideas of rights and responsibilities of the press in a setting where no topic need be off limits and where freedom of expression and academic liberty enable open discussion of these important issues.

I'd like to take advantage of this occasion to reflect briefly on the principles that underlie the Pulitzer Prize. These principles are long-standing and have been important for a long time, but nevertheless still relate to the question of the impact our most-recent technology is exerting on journalism. We're all aware of the 24-hour news cycle and 'speed news' reported in real time around the globe at cyber speed. But some of that reporting is cast in a way I think that makes the principles that the Pulitzer Prize stands for all the more important.

The Pulitzer Prize is named, as we saw, for an American publisher, Joseph Pulitzer, who originally funded it through money he gave to Columbia University. It's probably the most recognized and easily among the most prestigious awards for excellence in journalism throughout the world. And the criteria for granting the award ought to serve as benchmarks for guiding every responsible journalist. They set a high standard and that high standard is hard to reach. But that standard has been met by the prizewinners with us today. One reason I'm so thrilled to see them here, and hope that this event will continue on year after year, is that it gives hope that journalists around the world, including China, can aspire to meet those same fine journalistic standards.

When you read the criteria for the awards and the actual citations given to specific prizewinners, certain words jump out. Words like "public service," "illuminate," "significant," "moral purpose," "power to influence" and, common to all of the awards, "distinguished." And when you read the actual articles and investigative reports, or when you look at the photographs that merited the awards, you come to understand what these words mean in real practice.

Journalism has a key role in modern society, whether it's Western or Asian. I think Secretary Wong did a great job of discussing the importance of journalism and the values underlying it, and the reason why all of us have a stake in the media, whether we're in government, business, academia, or whatever field. We all rely on the media. As information becomes more globally available in real-time, it is sometimes more difficult to separate fact from opinion or from spin. At its best, responsible and quality journalism is be guided by the standards enshrined in the Pulitzer Prizes. But at its worst, journalism can be a quite debilitating practice in modern society, as we unfortunately see in a lot of trends in my country, with the advent of rumor parading as instantaneous information through blogs and other means.

Despite this, there remain enduring principles that I, at least, hope would be carried on in the future by journalists both in the West and in Asia. You can do without the cheap shot. You can be enlightening in your work. You can illuminate the dark corners of society so that criminality, corruption and injustice can be brought to light, and encourage corrective action. You can ask hard questions, persevere when discouraged, and speak out about what you've found when you're confident of the result.

Now those of us in government, and I've been in government for more than 30 years, are often challenged by the media. And frankly, on occasion we simply wish the media would simply go away and leave us alone. Its presence makes life more complicated, and so we sometimes wish it weren't around. We would prefer to be left to our own devices, and not have to answer troublesome questions about what we think about this, or what we're doing on that.

But the relationship between journalism and authority is one of the most important dynamics to a well functioning society. Our societies need the truth, even if it's inconvenient to powerful interests, whether governmental, commercial, or political. Self-censorship by the press undermines fulfilling the need for society, or even governments, to be well informed, as much as do crackdowns on press freedom. A press that doesn't act, that doesn't question, doesn't inquire, that chooses to muzzle itself, is an institution that withers by its own hand. Society benefits most when we have a dynamic interaction between those who have responsibility and authority and members of the press who look, hopefully, to explain accurately what's going on and point out where there are problems. That dynamic becomes no less important in this high-tech, information-rich age.

So let me stop there and end my comments by wishing you all a productive and enjoyable workshop, and for our visitors, a wonderful stay in Hong Kong. I'm looking forward to getting to know all of you better. Thank you very much.