http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/20/technology/hkmedia.php
International Herald Tribune
Actors' wedding leads to Hong Kong media frenzy
By Alexandra A. Seno
Sunday, July 20, 2008
HONG KONG: The bride said she hoped for a quiet wedding, but the Chinese entertainment news media had other ideas for an A-list Hong Kong actress, Carina Lau Kar-ling.
Her wedding, to be held on Monday in Bhutan to Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Chinese cinema's biggest dramatic star and winner of the 2000 Cannes award for best actor, has generated a frenzy among a news industry that spares little expense and goes to great lengths to chase big celebrity stories.
Since the Chinese entertainment news media discovered the wedding locale, the industry has deployed, in typical fashion, considerable human and financial resources to cover the marriage.
Dozens of reporters and photographers, and hundreds of thousands of dollars have relentlessly pursued the wedding party and their guests through three cities, including Paro, in the remote hills where the Buddhist ceremony will be held.
The booming Chinese entertainment news sector has proven not only profitable but also more competitive than ever. The five top-selling magazines in Hong Kong focus on pop culture and, like the rest of the industry, sell 95 percent of their copies on newsstands. Snapshots of Lau, 43, and Leung, 46, as well as facts and fiction about their coming marriage have dominated front pages in the last week.
In keeping with Lau's desire for a private moment, news outlets have not been invited to the wedding, even as throngs of reporters continue to stake out the couple and their friends.
Paro remains relatively peaceful despite the news media onslaught and the lengths the reporters have gone to get their story. By last Wednesday, they had discovered the wedding party's travel details. Leung's management company said it believes that at least six journalists were on the flight from Hong Kong to Bhutan, via Bangkok. Airline employees prevented one photographer from taking a picture of the couple. At least 20 journalists trailed the group in Bangkok, where they had dinner before flying to Bhutan.
At the end of last week, several Hong Kong journalists were in Paro and many have spent a lot of time mainly lurking on roadsides hoping to snap images. Leung's management company said that on Friday hotel security had removed at least eight Hong Kong journalists who entered the premises of the Uma Paro, a hilltop resort where some members of the bridal party are staying and where the main wedding events will be held.
"Chinese entertainment media are very, very aggressive and are willing to dole out money to get the job done," said Yuen-ying Chan, director of the University of Hong Kong Journalism and Media Studies Center. While she does not encourage her graduates to build careers in the genre, she acknowledges that the publications are "hugely successful."
Facts are often not the main elements for these stories, as the Lau-Leung wedding is proving.
"If they don't have the facts, they use their imagination," Chan said. "It is entertainment and readers are nosy by nature."
Unlike their counterparts in Europe and the United States, most Chinese paparazzi work as employees for publications and are not motivated by the potential earnings from a single photograph.
Hong Kong pop culture-oriented publications do "dramatically well" with advertisers, which is why the segment is growing, said Vivek Couto, head of research at Media Partners Asia, a boutique consulting company.
Mark Simon, group advertising director for NextMedia, owner of three of the five top-selling magazines in Hong Kong, said: "Hong Kong doesn't really have much real hard news, so entertainment is very important. The field is very crowded so we have to do what we can."
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