Category: JRNL102

When Pro-Sports Meet Protests: The Ringer’s Hong-Kong Coverage

On the fourth of October 2019, the Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey retweeted a graphic, with the message “Fight for Freedom, Stand with Hong Kong”. Ten days later, LeBron James publicly opposed Morey’s statement at a press conference, saying “I don’t want to get into a feud with Daryl Morey, but I believe he wasn’t educated on the situation at hand, and he spoke, and so many people could have been harmed, not only financially, physically, emotionally, spiritually.” From this, tensions between the NBA and China/Hong-Kong peaked, and opened many peoples eyes to the escalating protests in Hong-Kong.

Writing for The Ringer, Jordan Ritter Conn delivered a first hand account of the protests, providing it through the lens of the NBA’s impact on the clashes in his piece “‘This Should Be a Wake-up Call to the Whole World’: Inside the Hong Kong Protests.” The written piece incorporates his account of the protests from the ground in Hong-Kong, and features a number of interviews with protestors and people in and around the situation.

Related Articles: The Ringer coverage of the NBA China conflict, embedded throughout the article

The accompanying video “What the Hong Kong Protest Looks Like on the Ground”, is somewhat of a narrated photo-essay, containing photos and videos from the protests again narrated by Ritter Conn. The video helps provide context to the written piece, showing the situation that these protestors are facing, and providing an insight to what he as a reporter was seeing.

‘What the Hong Kong Protest Looks Like on the Ground’

Peter Martin’s ‘THE MOJO IN THE THIRD MILLENNIUM‘ states that “In an era of heightened newspaper and television competition driven by steadily declining North American readership and viewer numbers, many media managers have embraced with enthusiasm the solo journalist—able to move fast and travel light, at lower cost than traditional news teams.” This is definitely the case in Ritter Conn’s piece for The Ringer, with a solo journalist on the ground in Hong Kong covering the protests, both through interviews and a written piece, as well as photos and videos of the unfolding situation.

Social media also played a large role in this story. The initial story stems from an issue on Twitter, and is written for The Ringer, a purely online publication that features extensive social networking. The role of social media in this story can be explained by Susan Jacobson, who states that “the news now finds itself thrust into the realm of the digital, where it is increasingly likely to show characteristics associated with native digital formats such as hypertext, video games and social media.”

Jordan Ritter Conn’s piece for The Ringer about the Hong Kong protests uses multi-media highly successfully in delivering an in-depth and engaging story straight from the source. Through a written piece, and an accompanying narrated video, Conn delivers a first hand account of the protests and how the people in Hong Kong have reacted to them, as well as their reactions to comments made by NBA figures Daryl Morey and LeBron James. This array of multi-media storytelling features is highly effective in providing an informative and engaging coverage of a highly nuanced issue, in a way that sports fans and the general public can understand.

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On the surface, solo-diving is one of the most dangerous hobbies for a person to have. Already at a high risk of an accident or emergency, solo-diving leaves no room for error.

But that’s the thing about diving. You have to look deeper than the surface.
For Lachlan Campbell, the appeal comes from a more traditional approach to diving.

“Free diving by yourself is amazing sometimes. I love how primitive it feels, like how it would have been when spearfishing first started” said Campbell. 

This hunter-gatherer mindset is what has drawn many to diving, the opportunity to live off of the land so attractive to those who wish to have a more sustainable lifestyle. 

“I really enjoy the feeling of harvesting and gathering my own food and being able to share this fresh produce with my friends and family,” he said. 

While there are limits and restrictions on fishing and cray diving in Australia, most divers tend not to take anymore than they need.

A focus on conservation and sustainable living is one which goes hand in hand with a deep respect for the ocean, and an understanding of just how interconnected the environment truly is. 

“The fact that you’re able to cut out the middleman, the processing stage of food production, is pretty incredible” said Campbell.

It isn’t just diving either. This passion for sustainability has seeped into Lachlan’s everyday life, and has changed the way he views a lot of things.

“Having a sustainable life on all fronts would be amazing. I’d love to have a veggie garden, chickens, etc… the combo of that with freediving for seafood is beautiful,” said Campbell.

However, Lachlan’s intimate connection with the ocean extends beyond sustainable living, and acts as a separate world in which he feels at home and completely comfortable.

His attachment with the ocean started early, three years old and surfing with his dad on an old tattered surfboard at Batemans Bay. As he grew, so too did the allure of the sea. 

“I always wanted to experience what it was like to be under the water, instead of just paddling around on top of it. Although I took to diving a bit later, I feel it’s the strongest connection I have with the ocean,” he said.

While he does not consider diving as an escape, for Lachlan it is a good distraction from the stress of daily life.

It’s the place where he feels most at home, and a place that provides him the chance at a sustainable, happy and healthy lifestyle. He, of course, puts it best, and most simply:

“I tend to always feel the happiest when I’ve come in from diving.”