In Franz Kafka’s 1925 novel, The Trial, Prague bank clerk Joseph K is arrested but not told why. He was informed neither of the nature of the purported crime nor the names of the accusers. He is left to speculate about what was going on.
On May 22, 2025 I was notified by the news chief of Radio Television Hong Kong’s English service that my 12-year-long employment was terminated. I had been the station’s US-based economics correspondent. When asked for the reason, my colleague demurred, “I’m not at liberty to say.” A month earlier I had been greeted at the station and told that my thrice weekly commentary on the station’s English language Radio 3 program was highly regarded.
Phone calls to friends revealed a likely explanation. One said, “Barry, Google your name and Hong Kong protests.” I did and there they were, stories—factually based–that I had written six years earlier during a visit to Shanghai and Hong Kong.
Last month here in Washington, I applied for press credentials for the Group of 20 finance ministers meeting in Asheville, North Carolina. I would be reporting for The Daily Friend, an online news publication in South Africa which sponsors my bi-weekly American Dispatch column. On August 26th my request was approved.
But when I arrived at the meeting venue on August 30th to claim my credentials I was informed that the approval had been revoked. I apparently was on a list of correspondents to be denied access.
My situations are not fully analogous to Joseph K. Indeed, they are mild. Concerning Hong Kong, my dismissal from RTHK is benign when compared to the jailing of local journalists or the dire fate of publisher Jimmy Lai, who languishes in a Hong Kong prison. The absence of explanation is what one might expect in a Communist country.
As to the G20 meeting, I have a guess as to why I was denied access. For over a year Donald Trump has been feuding with South Africa over its racial policies. Last November the president boycotted the Group of 20 summit hosted by South Africa. The United States—this year’s rotating chairman—arbitrarily refused to invite South Africa to Asheville but did invite Russia, which had been suspended in 2022 after Moscow invaded Ukraine.
My speculation is that barring a reporter from a South African publication conveniently removed the possibility that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent would be asked a question about that country’s absence. But as with Hong Kong there was no explanation, which is distressing since press freedom is part of what distinguishes democratic from totalitarian societies.
Access is vital for a reporter doing his or her job. Tomas Masaryk, the statesman who founded Czechoslovakia, wrote that a successful journalist must be “well informed and capable. able to observe and understand. With the whole world as his canvass.” You can’t be well informed or able to observe and understand if you’re stuck on the outside.
I have repeatedly sought an explanation from the US Treasury. My emails and phone calls have not been answered. And in that sense, I’m not unlike Joseph K who grappled with inaccessible authority, ensnared by incomprehensible bureaucratic powers.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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