Alibaba has ventured into the business of news with its agreement to acquire the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post (SCMP). The Hong Kong-based newspaper and SCMP Group’s other assets, which includes local editions of Esquire and Elle, will cost Alibaba a little over HK$2 billion — around US$262 million — according to a regulatory filing.
TechCrunch says Alibaba didn’t disclose the cost of the deal when it was announced late on Friday — at nearly 9pm China time to be precise. That’s an awfully suspicious time, and it suggests that the e-commerce giant was trying to avoid creating headlines with this deal.
Why would Alibaba want to bury this news, or at least minimize the coverage? Many reasons, most of which are fairly obvious. Corporate companies owning media is a dicey topic at best — case in point: Amazon’s purchase of the Washington Post — but when you throw China into the mix, the waters are further muddied.
For its part, Alibaba tried to make its intentions clear.
In a letter to SCMP readers, Alibaba executive chairman Joe Tsai said that the company would not exert pressure on the paper’s work, but instead intends to use its resources and digital savvy ” to take the SCMP to the next level.”
In particular, Tsai argued, there’s a need for stronger coverage of China:
Some have suggested that ownership by Alibaba will compromise the SCMP’s editorial independence. This criticism reflects a bias of its own, as if to say newspaper owners must espouse certain views, while those that hold opposing views are “unfit.”
In fact, that is exactly why we think the world needs a plurality of views when it comes to China coverage. China’s rise as an economic power and its importance to world stability is too important for there to be a singular thesis.
In reporting the news, the SCMP will be objective, accurate and fair. This means having the courage to go against conventional wisdom, and taking care to verify stories, check sources and seek all viewpoints. These day-to-day editorial decisions will be driven by editors in the newsroom, not in the corporate boardroom.
The problem here is that SCMP, which is over 100 years old and often viewed as an indicator of press freedom levels in Hong Kong, already faces criticism for shaping its coverage of China with a more positive stance than other outlets.
