Readers lined up in the rain to buy copies of the Apple Daily’s final edition. They rushed to archive its articles online before its website went blank. Other local news outlets plastered their home pages with reports of the publication’s demise, even as editors wondered where the new boundaries lay.
Hours after Apple Daily, one of Hong Kong’s most widely read and independent news outlets, was forced to shut amid mounting government pressure, many in the city were scrambling to preserve what parts of its legacy they could. The paper printed its final edition Thursday after a raid on its newsroom, the arrest of top editors and the freezing of its bank accounts made it the biggest casualty yet in an aggressive campaign by Beijing against Hong Kong’s once freewheeling news media.
As the paper put its last edition to bed, hundreds of supporters gathered outside its headquarters in the rain, waving cellphone lights and chanting "Support Apple Daily till the end!”