Opinion: Dear editors, please curb your bamboo enthusiasm
I am heartbroken to learn at least 55 lives have perished in one of the worst fires in the history of Hong Kong, a densely populated city where I was born and grew up in, before I moved to the United Kingdom to pursue a journalism degree.
Most international media publications were quick to blame bamboo scaffolding for playing a significant role in the rapid spread of the fire. Journalists and authors rushed to jump into the conclusion that the traditional construction material allowed fire to jump from one residential block to another at an unprecedented rate.
All the while firefighters are still tackling the inferno and police detectives are still trying to figure out what happened.
Is it not strange when editors and correspondents appeared to know more than the people who can access the scene and they seemed more certain about the disaster than the people tasked to investigate the blaze?
With this in mind, I went through the articles and broadcasts by more than a dozen media outlets again, only to realise how inaccurate and misleading the claims are, to my shock and horror.
Page 11 of Metro printed on November 28, 2025 reporting on the latest death toll in the Tai Po apartment complex fire.
These are not news based on facts, but rather opinion pieces masquerading as news.
What readers should have been told:
• The exact cause of the fire is still unclear.
• Local media had widely reported that the scaffolding protection mesh was not in compliance with the safety regulations and was highly flammable when it should meet fire-retardant standards.
• Preliminary findings from police and firefighters have attributed to numerous factors possibly fuelling the fire, not just the scaffolding.
• Residents had long complained construction workers smoking and leaving cigarette butts at the site where smoking was not permitted.
• The weather was extremely dry and windy, perfect for fire to grow exponentially.
Instead of a careful analysis of the event unfolded, anyone who reads the reports from the likes of BBC, ITV, Guardian, Reuters, Channel 4, Metro, The Independent, GB News and The Times only received a one-sided assessment from speculations and confirmation bias from reporters who didn’t bother to paint the whole picture, scapegoating and insisting on bamboo scaffolding as the reason because of orientalism.
This is not the attitude of journalism I learned after spending three years at a top J-school in Britain. Even if the articles were updated and stories were repackaged following the police press conference in early morning, the damage has long been done and people have already formed a prejudiced view on the issue.
To me, the negligence in reporting is just as heartbreaking as the mounting death toll in my beloved hometown.
