WSJ fires Cheng after she was elected chair of Hong Kong press group

Selina Cheng

A Hong Kong-based reporter for the Wall Street Journal was terminated by the newspaper soon after she was elected as chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, reports Shibani Mahtani of The Washington Post.

Mahtani reports, “Selina Cheng, the reporter, said in a news conference Wednesday that she believes the termination is related to her role as chair of the organization. She said she came under pressure from her employer to quit the association.

“The day before the HKJA election, Cheng said, her supervisors directed her to withdraw her candidacy and to leave HKJA’s board, of which she has been a member since 2021. She declined their requests.

“‘[I] was immediately told it would be incompatible with my job,’ said Cheng. ‘The editor said employees of the Journal should not be seen as advocating for press freedom in a place like Hong Kong, even though they can in Western countries, where it is already established.'”

Read more here.

A Dow Jones spokesperson provided the following statement:

“While we can confirm that we made some personnel changes today, we don’t comment on specific individuals.

“The Wall Street Journal has been and continues to be a fierce and vocal advocate for press freedom in Hong Kong and around the world.”

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.