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Let's take a serious look at all those negative stories that keep appearing in the press, and are regularly featured on our TV screens and radios stations, all of them with seemingly just one purpose - to "bash" the government and belittle our Chief Executive, Leung Chun-ying.

If we are to believe the handful of critics and naysayers concerned, our government is suffering some sort of serious nervous strain and, so to speak, "jumping at shadows". Again and again the critics lash out, demanding answers to their questions about what has happened to old-fashioned positive policies and well-considered decision-making blah blah blah.

Figuratively beating their breasts in anguish, they bleat, "Where has the dynamism of old gone to? What has happened to the fire, the spirit, the drive and the vision that created the Hong Kong 'miracle'?"

STOP! Let's start thinking through these supposedly insoluble problems now facing us and supposedly about to bring our great city down to its knees. Ask yourself some basic questions and you will quickly realize that it is totally nonsensical to suggest that Hong Kong is on the edge of an abyss and about to tumble into bottomless oblivion.

This nonsense is being spouted to such an extent that foolishly we have fallen into the critics' trap, and are actually beginning to question our confidence in Hong Kong's future.

Has the economic heartbeat of Hong Kong magically stalled? No, we're still a leading global financial center, and one of Asia's main tourist attractions.

Have our food supplies been cut off, and do we face a food crisis? Have the public transport companies - MTR, buses, tram, ferries and the like - all suddenly stopped operating? Has China Light & Power or HK Electric switched off the power and lights all gone off? Absurd. Is the airport still operating 24x7 or are they diverting the planes to other Asian destinations? The answer to every question is a thunderous NO!

Let us make an honest appraisal of our current lifestyle, and compare it with what's happening in other global megacities. So where better to start than the US capital of Washington. Hold on, you say ... that's not a fair comparison because Washington and all the other big American cities are in lockdown over the Republicans' refusal to pass legislation so the government can pay its staff of nearly one million, who are now on enforced leave breaks.

So instead we'll switch to London. Not London either, you say - it's no longer a safe city - 52 killed and 700 injured in the bombings in 2005, then mass looting of stores and civic mayhem in the August 2011 riots.

Paris? No again - the French haven't been able to balance their books for years, and the country is in disarray. Rome? Don't you realize city services such as refuse collection have failed in the Italian capital, and it's overrun with jobless refugees who mostly live by crime.

So we ask again - is Hong Kong broke or busted in some way? Of course not. Do we enjoy a remarkably wide range of freedoms and privileges under the Basic Law? Yes, indeed; and these are the very privileges that the "bashers" - a handful of naysaying self-seekers - take pleasure in constantly abusing as they keep up their barrage of negativity and endless criticism.

These voluble critics comprise an infinitesimal minority of supposedly knowledgeable people whose doomsday views we constantly read in the press, see or hear on TV and radio, or read on social media.

These naysayers can best be described as the media's "dial-a-quote" brigade, ever ready to spit out a nasty negative quote within seconds of answering lazy reporters' phone calls, gleefully spitting out venomous anti-government opinions on whatever subject is that day's supposed big "issue".

The nastier and more virulent the quote, the more likely it is to be emblazoned in the following day's headlines: "Govt backtrack a 'shameful disgrace', say LegCo critics".

And so the "game" continues almost daily, with the naysayers grabbing headlines and the explanation for the government's action being buried in the final paragraph.

Thus is how artificially produced "public opinion" is presented by many of our media outlets, whose motto appears to be "scare stories sell papers and win audiences - let's keep bashing the government and portraying the CE as a dope." Depending on which branch of the media their companies are involved in, their proprietors are primarily concerned with a) selling more newspapers, b) attracting more viewers and c) increasing their audience.

And their No 1 rule is never to let the facts spoil a good story!

The author is Op-Ed editor of China Daily Hong Kong Edition. [email protected]

(HK Edition 10/11/2013 page9)