Helen Davidson

Correspondent, currently in Middle East on language study.
Formerly for @Guardian via Taiwan, Hong Kong, Darwin, Sydney

[Helen Davidson @heldavidson]

@heguisen On Sundays you wear yellow

[Shibani Mahtani @ShibaniMahtani]

I am heartbroken at the hollowing out of an institution I so deeply loved, and for my colleagues, who deserve so much better. I didn't know it at the time, but my last story for the Post published today, on a meth and public health crisis in Fiji
https://t.co/XHldVbPFEO

[Hari Raj @jarirah]

A short note to confirm The Washington Post closed its Seoul hub today. Have loved every moment of working with the team here and at the mothership. The cuts have been deep across the board and I will miss the many talented people I have learned from — you are all magnificent.

[Sen. Bernie Sanders @SenSanders]

If Jeff Bezos could afford to spend $75 million on the Melania movie & $500 million for a yacht to sail off to his $55 million wedding to give his wife a $5 million ring, please don't tell me he needed to fire one-third of the Washington Post staff.

Democracy dies in oligarchy.

[William Nee @williamnee]

My deepest sympathies go out to the laid off journalists from the @washingtonpost

The journalists covering East Asia consistently produced pieces that helped improve our understanding of the region, particularly thinking of @ShibaniMahtani, @annafifield, @cdcshepherd, @gerryshih

[Michael Miller @MikeMillerDC]

It was an honor to be @washingtonpost's first Sydney bureau chief. Unfortunately, I'm also the last. The paper is shrinking foreign coverage. I've lost my job. Worse, millions of readers will lose my colleagues' brilliant coverage. At a time of tumult, we need more info, not less

[Shibani Mahtani @ShibaniMahtani]

I've been laid off from the Post today, along with too many of my incredible colleagues, after eight incredible years, most of them in Hong Kong and covering China's expansion, a story that will define our generation.

[Gerry Shih @gerryshih]

It was a privilege to be a Post correspondent, roaming the world the last 7+ years for a paper I very much believed in. I'm gone along with the rest of the ME team and majority of teammates from Delhi to Beijing to Kyiv & Latam. Sad day, but it was a lot of fun and we raised hell

[Helen Davidson @heldavidson]

Appalling day in media, what a massive loss of talent across the board, at a time it’s needed more than ever

[Anna Fifield @annafifield]

I was laid off as Asia editor of the Washington Post today. It was an absolute privilege to work with people who are not only incredible journalists but also wonderful humans. My heart breaks for everyone who lost their job today - and for the readers who will be the worse for it

[Samuel Bickett @SamuelBickett]

Having been in Hong Kong prison in summer, it’s so brutally hot that even in shorts nearly every male prisoner would break out in rashes, while many would have fainting and vomiting spells. It’s even worse for women who, unlike men, can’t take off their shirts to work.

Reading Judge Coleman’s opinion, it boils down to “We must trust the good officers as Correctional Services that they have good reasons for this discriminatory policy, and they say some prisoners like it.” Utterly absurd.

[Bonnie Glaser / 葛來儀 @BonnieGlaser]

Exclusive: Chinese officials are using a ‘highly specific’ interpretation of EU rules to suggest Taiwanese figures should not be granted visas, officials say. https://t.co/GPoc9pMynp

[Engin Eroglu @EnginEroglu_FW]

The more pressure vis-a-vis Europe, the more pressure vis-a-vis Taiwan, the closer we will stand together.

External pressure is the catalyst for a new era of EU-Taiwan cooperation.

#EUwithTAIWAN

https://t.co/DIAowmH5CG

[Behrouz Boochani @BehrouzBoochani]

The footage coming out of Iran makes it believable that the number of people killed by security forces is in the thousands. I think the world will be even more shocked as the reality becomes visible in the coming days. It is a massive massacre. #Iran

[Helen Davidson @heldavidson]

My final Taiwan byline for the Guardian with a scoop on Beijing’s latest creative pressure campaign: telling Europe they’ve misunderstood their own border laws https://t.co/JqcqvoQnhw

[Mat Youkee @matyoukee]

My first story from Taipei, with thanks to @heldavidson

https://t.co/xAbJglL1Bq

[Kevin Yam 任建峰 @kevinkfyam]

A huge thanks to @heldavidson for quoting me. Just to elaborate on my two quotes in the @guardian as noted below by @SupportJimmyLai:

“[Jimmy Lai’s publications] kept Hong Kong honest in many ways … We kind of forget that Jimmy Lai and his media businesses played an important role in Hong Kong as an international financial centre because it kept the free flow of information going about Hong Kong’s corporate underbelly.”

- Politics aside, because Lai was very much outside of HK’s business establishment, it meant that his publications had a much freer hand than most other publications to undertake fearless investigative journalism. This led to Next Magazine and Apple Daily having exposed many HK and China corporate scandals.

- Notwithstanding the at times unnecessarily salacious ways in which some of these scandals were broken by Next and Apple, their work was so valued by the financial sector in HK that they would often look to Next and Apple reports as preliminary first steps in their IPO or mergers and acquisitions due diligence.

- Jimmy Lai’s publications were standard bearers (in substance, even if not always in style) of HK as an international financial centre, insofar as it reflected a deal-making hub in which investors and financiers have access to information with little fetter.

- The downfall of Jimmy Lai and his publications coincided with a time when, as has been variously reported, national security laws have made equities analysts reluctant to state their views on Chinese companies frankly, and prospectus disclosure rules plus companies registry search rules were changed with a new to more opacity about HK and Chinese companies.

“The trajectory of [Jimmy Lai’s] life reflects the history of Hong Kong itself.”

- Jimmy Lai’s rise as a HK businessman reflected HK’s economic rise. His initial wealth came from the garments manufacturing and retail sector.

- His distrust of the CCP reflected that of HKers generally, and was solidified by the Tiananmen Square Massacre, just like it was for many HKers.

- His founding of Next Magazine and Apple Daily reflected a flourishing HK media scene in the 1990s. Ironically for someone who was strongly anti-CCP, the CCP’s antics was once very profitable for him, as his entrepreneurial instincts propelled him to plug a HK media market gap in which being anti-CCP in print was no longer the preserve of the cobwebbed “we need to save China!” intellectual types.

- However, as the CCP and its allies started closing in, advertisements in Next and Apple gradually dried up, but that did not stop Jimmy Lai from holding on to his beliefs, while the HK public stuck with him.

- When the National Security Law came into force and Lai was first arrested, the public supported him and protested in the most HK way possible: buying Next Digital Limited shares and driving up its share price even as the likelihood of the company being shut down by the HK Government’s moves grew, which would (and eventually did) render the company’s shares worthless.

- And then Lai was locked up again, and we are where we are both with him and with HK.

[Helen Davidson @heldavidson]

RT @SaksithCNA: JUST IN: She Zhejiang, a Chinese-Cambodian tycoon accused of running online gambling sites and cyber scams in Myanmar and C…

[Media Watch @ABCmediawatch]

To shrug and say, ‘Well, it’s just the way things are’ is to walk ever further down a path that cedes ever more authority and risks betraying an already frayed compact with readers.

#MediaWatch

[Helen Davidson @heldavidson]

Revealed: the huge growth of Myanmar scam centres that may hold 100,000 trafficked people. By @rebeccarat https://t.co/tGYQp2uE0W

[9DASHLINE @9DashLine]

China drilling for oil and gas inside Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone https://t.co/yYxb6HkMu7 Experts say the move could be part of Beijing’s ‘greyzone’ grab for disputed territory.