Former Wall Street Journal reporter Selina Cheng has said that she was fired by the media outlet because of her election as the chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, the Guardian reported. 

Her dismissal from the WSJ on Wednesday came weeks after her appointment at the prominent journalists union on June 22, in the run up to which her supervisor reportedly requested to withdraw from the election for the post.     

In her press interaction as the HKJA chair, Cheng said she was “appalled” that she had to announce about being “fired for taking up this position in a press union”. She said she was told that the role would be “incompatible with my employment at the Wall Street Journal”.

Cheng reported on China’s automobiles and energy sectors for the WSJ, and was told by the media outlet that her layoff was due to “restructuring”. In a statement on X, Cheng said that the WSJ dismissed several reporters from its Hong Kong bureau in early May.

The WSJ has denied that there is any link between Cheng’s election as HKJA chair and her layoff. A spokesperson for Dow Jones, the WSJ’s parent company, told The Guardian: “While we can confirm that we made some personnel changes today, we don’t comment on specific individuals…Wall Street Journal has been and continues to be a fierce and vocal advocate for press freedom in Hong Kong and around the world.”

Meanwhile, the HKJA, regarded as one of the last remaining civil society groups in Hong Kong, has been “under increasing pressure” by the government. It said the union was “disappointed and outraged” by the WSJ’s decision. “By pressuring employees not to take part in the HKJA, a key advocate for both local and international journalists working in Hong Kong, the WSJ risks hastening the decline of what space for independent journalism remains.”

Several other international journalists bodies have also come out in support of the Hong Kong based journalist, including  Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club, NewsGuild, The Wall Street Journal’s US-based union, and The Independent Association of Publishers’ Employees.  

Newslaundry has extensively reported on the violation of press freedom in India and the need for better safeguards. Read here.

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