Fundamentally it is not what western media think as “news”.
It is long, ultra detailed, first person, and doesn’t cover the central point covered by other news outlets.
If a NYT editor was reading this it would cut it down to a fifth of what it is, have it reexplain the 5 demands, give a clearer political positioning etc.
We had that with french protests, standard news covering was cut so it was very digestible and non thought provoking (ton of focus on politics, the fights, injuries and non participant’s reactions to the events), it felt like most places removed bits that could be too interesting.
We need both obviously, and I also share your view that more often than not when big event occurs the news coverage doesn’t help much to give us a grip about what’s actually happening.
> If a NYT editor was reading this it would cut it down to a fifth of what it is, have it reexplain the 5 demands, give a clearer political positioning etc.
The word "extradition", a key piece of information about current HK-China relations, does not appear in this blog. Let's not pretend it is deeper than something produced by a reputable newspaper. A newspaper can put out long form like this, or just straight news. In either case, any decent story teller will mention why the protests are happening.
The reasons for the protests are well-covered elsewhere, they are full of nuance that I can't get right, and my assumption is that people who read through this post and are interested will be able to find lots of background on the protests through a simple google search.
I would normally have added reading links, but things are moving fast here and also I am on an unfamiliar travel laptop where it's kind of a chore to edit and write.
yes, this piece would not stand as a news article on its own (it's also not its goal).
I think the reaction we have to it is that it is willing to present aspects that might not resonate with most people, nor have any specific signification or symbolism attached to it.
Even a long form news piece would need to justify why some bits is in it, what role it plays in the piece, and get scrapped if it fails to justify itself. The advantage of this piece is it has none of these restrictions.
In its way it's a very good complement to cut and dry news.
I'd argue at this point most people who wanted to hear about the protests has, and knows what it is about. Or anyone picking up that there's protests from this piece would find the relevant info very fast.
It's actually how I heard about it first, with random comments on international board that pushed me to try to find better sources. That's not a bad path to news either, as you get to it with curiosity and interest already setup.
That aside, I think this piece would still be interesting for people knowing nothing about the reason of the protest, just like how we can read memories about wars we don't really know about but still get the 'how it felt from the inside'.
It is long, ultra detailed, first person, and doesn’t cover the central point covered by other news outlets.
If a NYT editor was reading this it would cut it down to a fifth of what it is, have it reexplain the 5 demands, give a clearer political positioning etc.
We had that with french protests, standard news covering was cut so it was very digestible and non thought provoking (ton of focus on politics, the fights, injuries and non participant’s reactions to the events), it felt like most places removed bits that could be too interesting.
We need both obviously, and I also share your view that more often than not when big event occurs the news coverage doesn’t help much to give us a grip about what’s actually happening.