斯蒂芬•萧即使在解释香港的下任领导即将摧毁香港民主的时候，依旧笑得开怀。他使用自己“香港记者”这一身份在广播电台脱口秀中将自己的愤怒与迷人气质演绎到极致。因为是在网上，他能够规避广播电台的规则。实际上，萧先生同时谈论了政府与传统传媒。
香港700万人口中，有25万人看《香港记者》。他们的政治砝码是“人民力量”。从技术上讲是一支人数不多的反对党联盟，这是一支年轻而愤怒的力量，擅长穿着代表愤怒的黄黑衣裳上街闹事，然后向中共党竖中指。在2011年早期它从社会民主党联盟中分离出来。社会民主党联盟与“人民力量”在立法会只占有60席。他们与更为有涵养的公民党一起被称为“激进民主派”。肖先生嘲笑人数更众但立法会席位仅占8个的民主党，称该党派只是一个“伪饰的反对党”。它摒弃了一种妥协的方式及其信息源。
7月1日肖先生将从抗议阵营中心进行现场直播。抗议阵营中心就在中国胡锦涛主席即将即将香港回归15周年庆的大厅外面，胡锦涛还将见证香港行政长官之位从曾荫权手中移至梁振英手中。反对者将会谴责北京的统治——尤其是它对民主统治无期限的延期。2003年，当50万香港人上街游行反对已提上议案的“反颠覆法”，这种一年一度的反抗已经被视为一种公众情绪，一种变质的选举制度所不允许的公众情绪。
今年的对抗将会是血雨腥风的，除非来一次真正的台风作为干扰。这次庆典、胡锦涛的来访、梁振英上台（其支持票仅有1200）以及其对北京联络处与香港的关联，所有这一切都助长了一种怒气。而中国掐地区的动荡也是一样。李望洋的神秘死亡（李望洋是异见人士，在接受香港电台采访没几天之后就被发现于湖南省某医院上吊而亡）引起了联络处外一阵愤怒的骚乱。“人民群众”带头领先，手上举着一幅横幅上书“共产党”并用一红色斜杠划过，他们就这样游行穿过路易威登与普拉达等奢侈品牌店。
这些天香港很多人就对中国日益壮大的影响力表示担忧，他们怀疑地方精英与中央蛇鼠一窝，一起掩盖了某些不受欢迎的真相。香港记者协会所作的问卷调查显示，36%的本地记者承认过去一年做过自我审查，79%的人认为过去七年来自我审查已经变得越来越普遍。媒体依旧焦躁不安，尽管有几十份日报占据了市场，但对其完整性的怀疑依旧没有中断。很多经营良好的报社属于友善的北京商人所有，经营这些报业是亏损的。中国南方日报晨报（有盈利）的编辑王向伟因写李先生之死的文章篇幅太短而被嘲弄，尽管他的报纸一直以来都为李先生留了很多位置。对于批评者来说，任职长达16年的王先生是个大陆人，这点非同小可。另一份调查显示，认为自己是中国人的香港人人数达十三年最低。
在这种氛围下，那些急切期待另类新闻及观点的人涌去支持浮夸的满嘴脏话的粤语播音员肖先生以及其他激进的网络闹事者。了解自己影响力的肖先生本周宣布了一项威胁，即他成为了立法会的候选人。如果其支持者在九月份截止的民调问卷中不选出至少三名“人民力量”候选人出来的话，他说他就会解散香港记者。
Hong Kong’s radical democrats: Radio rebels | The Economist
STEPHEN SHIU’s laughter is booming even as he explains how the city’s next leader plans to crush the very heart of liberal Hong Kong. He uses both anger and charm to great effect on talk-radio broadcasts on his own internet outlet, Hong Kong Reporter. Being online, it evades broadcasting regulations. Mr Shiu is in effect taking on both the government and traditional media in one go.
Of Hong Kong’s 7m people, 250, 000 follow HK Reporter. Their political vehicle is People Power. Technically a coalition of small, anti-government parties, it is a young and angry force that excels at taking noisily to the street in waspish black and yellow, putting two fingers up to the Communist Party. It split from the League of Social Democrats (LSD) in early 2011. LSD and People Power have only three of 60 seats in the Legislative Council (Legco). Along with the more genteel Civic Party, they are called the “radical democrats”. Mr Shiu derides the bigger Democratic Party, which has eight Legco seats, as a merely “decorative opposition”. He spurns its compromising ways—and its sources of information.
Mr Shiu will be broadcasting live from the centre of a protest camp on July 1st, just outside the hall where China’s president, Hu Jintao, is to mark the 15th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong to China, and witness the ceremonial transfer of power from the outgoing chief executive, Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, to the incoming, Leung Chun-ying. The protesters will decry rule by Beijing—in particular its indefinite deferral of democracy. Since 2003, when 500, 000 Hong Kongers marched against proposed anti-subversion laws, the annual protests have been watched as a gauge of public sentiment, of the sort that the tilted electoral system does not allow.
Unless a real typhoon intervenes, this year’s protests will be huge and stormy. The anniversary, Mr Hu’s visit, Mr Leung’s selection (by a committee of a mere 1, 200 voters) and anxiety about his ties to Beijing’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong, all contribute to popular fury. So does turbulence elsewhere in China. The suspicious death of Li Wangyang, a dissident who was found hanged in his hospital room in Hunan province only days after giving an interview to a Hong Kong TV crew, provoked a furious protest outside the Liaison Office. People Power led the way, marching past Louis Vuitton and Prada stores with a banner slashing a red line through the character for “Communist”.
Many in Hong Kong worry these days about China’s growing influence, suspecting the local elite of conspiring with it to cover up unwelcome truths. In a poll of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, 36% of local reporters admitted to having censored themselves in the past year; 79% think self-censorship has become more common in the past seven years. The press is still boisterous, with dozens of dailies crowding the market, but doubts swirl around its integrity. Many well-established outfits are owned by Beijing-friendly businessmen who run them at a loss. The editor of the (profitable) South China Morning Post, Wang Xiangwei, is being pilloried for running too short a piece on Mr Li’s death, though his paper has in fact published plenty about it since. To his critics it matters that Mr Wang, a staffer for 16 years, is a mainlander. In another poll fewer Hong Kongers identified themselves as Chinese citizens than at any time for 13 years.
In this atmosphere those most desperate for alternative news and views flock to the foul-mouthed, flamboyantly Cantonese broadcasts of Mr Shiu and other radical online shock-jocks. Conscious of his clout, Mr Shiu issued a threat this week when he announced his own candidacy for Legco. If his listeners do not elect at least three more People Power candidates in the poll due in September, he says, he will take HK Reporter off the air.
