Today BUZZ goes Hong Kong-wide. After more than four years of publishing a local news magazine as SAI KUNG BUZZ we now evolve into HONG KONG BUZZ. It’s registered and official.
How did this come about? Publishing costs money, even online. BUZZ’s shareholders have been financing it. Tired of this we tried donation funding as so many publications now do, notably The Guardian. At BUZZ we found donation funding produced a big fat round number.
That got us thinking. Maybe our prime market, Sai Kung and Clearwater Bay, was just too small. We read Alan Rusbridger’s book, Breaking News. He was Guardian Editor for 20 years. The newspaper went from the Manchester Guardian to The Guardian of Fleet Street, then international. Why didn’t we follow this example? At least going city-wide.
So here we are. HONG KONG BUZZ.
It won’t happen overnight. The publication will evolve. SAI KUNG BUZZ produced more than 1600 stories, which will remain in the archives so you can access them. As HONG KONG BUZZ we will focus on more stories that have city-wide interest. What is news? The best definition we know is, That which interests the most people the most. Look for such stories in the new BUZZ. Sai Kung won’t be neglected; the BUZZ principals live here – our coverage of Sai Kung will continue as before; we will also keep the local social media pages going.
How can we compete with the the likes of scmp.com? We can’t. Our team is tiny; six people work actively on BUZZ. How will we differentiate HONG KONG BUZZ? We will strive to be “an alternative report on news, opinion and culture in Hong Kong”. We will seek to cover what others neglect.
Also stimulated by Editor Rusbridger we are going to be more interactive. We are experimenting with this now, reaching out to church leaders, the LGBT community and others, such as people who care passionately about the environment, animal welfare, abuse of domestic helpers and the politics of this city with its rotten system benefiting the few. You may have seen some of these stories appearing already.
Let’s see how we do. We will have fun and you can too. We hope to do a little good.
Your feedback is welcome.
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