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Tag: Court reporting

The Witness Launches Funding Drive

Written by Dalia Parete on . Posted in Flash Reports. No Comments on The Witness Launches Funding Drive

The Witness, a Hong Kong legal journalism outlet established in 2022 by former court reporters, launched an online store on August 17, 2025, using a pay-what-you-want pricing model for books, bags and other merchandise. The funding mechanism allows the publication to sustain operations while keeping all court reporting freely accessible to readers.

The store represents one of the latest attempts to maintain independent legal journalism in Hong Kong’s increasingly constrained media landscape. Since 2019, press freedom restrictions have forced the closure of multiple news outlets and prompted the departure of numerous court reporters, leaving many legal proceedings without media coverage and limiting public access to information about cases affecting civil liberties.

The Witness (法庭線) specializes in documenting trials, hearings and verdicts in Hong Kong courts, with particular focus on human rights cases and matters of public interest that receive limited attention from other outlets.

Persisting in Print

Written by LS Staff on . Posted in Flash Reports. No Comments on Persisting in Print

Two independent Hong Kong media organizations have recently published new books, a show of quiet resilience under the territory’s national security law restrictions. The Witness (法庭線) released How to Do Court News (法庭新聞怎麼做?) on July 15. The volume, which features more than 50 notes from the editor and previously unpublished reporting journals, follows the outlet’s earlier book Public Understanding of the Judiciary (公民司法認知). The Collective (集誌社) news outlet also published its inaugural book, The Collective: Our Record (集誌——我們在地記錄) in early July. The book collects 30 selected reports from the past two years, reflecting the outlet’s mission to “monitor the powerful, care for the disadvantaged, [and] record the post-movement era.”