CHINA-OCCUPIED HONG KONG – SCMP Asia Editor Lynn Lee has walked away from this year’s prestigious SOPA awards at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Hong Kong as the only editorial team member of the South China Morning Post to receive any kind of prize in the renowned publishing competition, but what a prize it was: first place in the category of Editorial Excellence in Overcompensating For Bad Copy By Throwing in As Many Useless Links as Possible.
Lee arrived at the SCMP after a 23-year stint at the Singapore Straits Times, where she helped overcompensate on SEO headlines by throwing in every key word she could think of in the hope of baiting unsuspecting Asian internet users into clicking on such articles as “Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Bronzes Penis As Corruption Scandal You Must Read About Now Starts Firestorm of Controversy and Murder at Parliament,” and “Malaysian Muslims Eating Pork Off Najib’s Arse-Crack Celebrate Ramadan Amid TikTok Gossip as Anwar Denies Another Sodomy Charge.” But it was not until she began working at the SCMP that her full digital prowess was made manifest.
The SOPA Awards Committee praised Lee for completely disregarding any standardized rules of journalism, not to mention common sense, in linking absolutely every word in the article, “K-Pop Groups Find New Teen Audiences in Failing Asian Nation States By Subverting Gay Icon Memes.”
“Ms. Lee’s genius for linking each work in the article, including every mention of ‘BTS,’ ‘Blackpink,’ ‘The,’ ‘Skin-whitening lotion,’ ‘Korean meme culture,’ ‘An,’ ‘Kim Jong-un’s fancy lap-poodle,’ and ‘K-Pop’s careless pre-teen sex whispers,’ shows a facility for wholly inventing new online journalism products and strategies while drawing maximum attention to the utter desperation of traditional media outlets as they fall hopelessly behind truly innovative online start-ups in the revenue-generation game,” the awards committee said.
“Nevertheless, she and the SCMP are to be commended for at least making a show of what is left of their journalism bona-fides as they are further subsumed into Beijing’s sphere of influence and are likely shat out the other end of the Fragrant Harbour and renamed Today in Commie Hong Kong.”