Asia animated Tiger Woods Draws scrutiny - Forbes

Journalism Or Sensationalism?

Hana R. Alberts, 12.07.09, 05:15 AM EST

An Asia media tycoon's animated 'news' reports -- of Tiger Woods and local crime -- draw scrutiny.

HONG KONG -- Animated accounts of news events generated by Hong Kong tycoon Jimmy Lai's media company are attracting eyeballs from around the globe.
Lai is a former retailer turned media mogul whose empire started releasing short video reports in earnest in November. In some of them, cartoonish characters give voice -- and body -- to the hottest stories of the day, from fairly graphic scenarios of Tiger Woods' infidelity to scenes from a crime committed by a man wielding a meat cleaver.
"I wouldn’t want to call it animated news because it belittles what it is," says Next Media's CEO, Wah Hui Chu. "Fundamentally, it is news reporting."
Lai's journalists say they are delivering information in a form that appeals to new readers they must win over to stay competitive.
"The younger generation, if you will, is moving, becoming more and more graphically video-oriented, whether it's video games or, more important, PCs," Chu says. "We felt we needed to find an additional medium to distribute our news stories."

Next Media's video production arm, which has more than 160 employees and puts together about 25 pieces a day, uses its own reporters as well as news wire services to map out a story board for a given article. The results are available on the Web site of the company's newspaper, Apple Daily, as well as on a YouTube channel. Readers can also use their mobile phones to view the films after downloading some software that can interpret a special code printed on the paper's pages.

While most coverage focuses on local news, broader topics -- like the recent kerfuffle over Tiger Woods and his alleged mistresses -- are also fodder for dramatization.
"When there is international news that we feel has widespread interest in the local community, we will take the piece and use animation to fill in what we call the 'missing images,' just the way we do with the local news," says Next Media's CEO, Wah Hui Chu.
After panning across images of tabloid covers and photos of different women who say they have been intimate with Woods, in one video the focus shifts to a 3-D rendering of a restaurant where Woods is alleged to have met a waitress with whom he had an affair. Successive shots render some of the tabloid claims into video, showing the calves of the couple in the shower followed by a view of them getting cozy on the couch. Later in the film, Woods is depicted as engaged in a fairly boisterous sex scene in which the van he is in rocks back and forth.
For both local and international stories, no matter where the reporting comes from, there is little concrete information available about details like clothing and hairstyles -- so Next's team in Taiwan tries to bridge the gap. It can take a project from paper to the web in as little as two hours."It is not that we totally create everything. All we do is no different from a newspaper journalist, just like those hundreds or maybe thousands working for the New York Times," Chu says. "The difference is instead of using words we use images."
Next Media is the force behind the unabashedly sensationalist Chinese-language tabloid Apple Daily, which has separate editions in both Hong Kong and Taiwan. Its front page often boasts escapades related to sex scandals, triad (gang) activities or corrupt politicos. (In past years, it even reviewed prostitutes as if they were restaurants.)
Next sells 310,000 Apple Daily copies a day in Hong Kong and 540,000 in Taiwan, putting them at No. 2 in circulation in both markets, Chu says. It also publishes several weekly magazines with a mix of news and entertainment coverage.
The media outlets under Lai's purview are saucy and irreverent. Lai's reporters aggressively cover political news – so much so that local businesses have yanked their advertising from the paper when it offends Beijing. The paper strongly advocates democracy for Hong Kong. At worst, the publications contain a bit of China-bashing.
Mainland-born Lai, 60, jumped ship to Hong Kong when he was just 12. He started Hong Kong clothing chain Giordano, which he sold in 1994, after its expansion in mainland China was stymied partly due to his criticism of China's government. He famously called China's premier "the son of a turtle egg" -- a grave insult.
Last year, Lai lost out to billionaire Tsai Eng-Meng for control of a Taiwanese media conglomerate. Tsai, whose Want Want China Holdings specializes in rice crackers and flavored milk, is said to have paid $621 million for The China Times Group, which controls TV stations and newspapers.
But Next has persevered, and the Taiwanese governmental authority that oversees communications licenses is currently reviewing its application to start broadcasting there.
"We will expand our presence into TV soon. TV will give us a platform to become very important content providers," Lai told Forbes Asia in May. "I think this is the future of Taiwan -- publishing, TV content and movies. This place is going to thrive with talent from here, Hong Kong and China."
Too bad its stock isn't sparking the same interest. Shares of Next Media fell 4.3% in trading Monday. Meanwhile, the benchmark Hang Seng Index dipped 0.8%. Chu says the fluctuation doesn't bother him because he doesn't believe "the market is rational in the short term," citing recent share price volatility due to rumors about Next's pending broadcast license approval.