One year after the influential Apple Daily newspaper was forced to close, and months after his own employer Stand News shuttered, Lam is running online publication reNews in the hopes of keeping journalistic scrutiny alive in the face of a Beijing-imposed crackdown.

“After the Apple Daily and Stand News incidents, one can see that press freedom in Hong Kong is shrinking very quickly,” he said of the outlets, which were critical of the Chinese Communist Party. “Society needs a different voice. If people are not informed then it’s impossible to bring about a change for the better.”

Lam, however, is taking a big risk with his one-man operation, which launched in April and has about 70,000 followers online.

Hong Kong now ranks 148th in the world in press freedom, squeezed between the Philippines and Turkey, according to the latest index released in May by Reporters Without Borders, a plunge from 80th place last year. Just two decades ago, Hong Kong ranked 18th globally, the highest media freedom ranking in Asia.

“Once a bastion of press freedom, Hong Kong has seen an unprecedented setback since 2020 when Beijing adopted a National Security Law aimed at silencing independent voices,” Reporters Without Borders said.

The sweeping legislation criminalized dissent and cleared the way for Hong Kong’s government to force the shutdown of Apple and Stand News last year.

More than a dozen of the outlets’ senior executives and journalists were arrested on charges including allegedly conspiring to publish seditious material and colluding with “foreign forces.” Some of the Apple defendants could face up to life in prison on the latter charge, including the paper’s founder, Jimmy Lai.

With its assets frozen and unable to pay employees, Apple decided to shut down operations last June.

Last week, a Hong Kong court confirmed that two Stand News editors and the company itself would go on trial in October, while the Apple defendants are awaiting their hearing date.

Hong Kong’s government disputes that press freedom has been affected by the security law. Incoming chief executive John Lee — the city’s former security chief who oversaw a clampdown on mass protests in 2019 — has said he was in favor of regulations to reduce “fake news.”

But over a half dozen other independent digital media outlets have also closed amid concerns that operating was impossible in the city’s current political environment.

This month, investigative news outlet FactWire, which in April reported on the business ties between Lee’s sons and the election committee that nominated him to lead the city, announced it was closing. It said only that “media have contended with great change in recent years.”

“My ex-colleagues and friends have paid a heavy price for defending press freedom in Hong Kong, I have no reason or room for stepping back,” Lam said.

But he is an exception — most journalists who lost their jobs in the past two years have moved on out of fear or necessity — sometimes both.

“There’s a hole in my heart. My entire career was intertwined with Apple Daily,” said one former reporter who had spent 14 years at the newspaper. “All of a sudden, we lost our reporter jobs and the news organization just disappeared.”

The 41-year-old, who asked not to be named, described the legal woes of his former colleagues as “punishment before trial.”

He had thought about staying in journalism, but his family worried about his safety so he took up a marketing job.

The former reporter’s job search underscored how simply quitting a media job doesn’t guarantee safety, though. One prospective employer said it wouldn’t hire him over fears it might violate the vaguely written security law.

Chris Yeung and Daisy Li, chief writer and editor respectively for Hong Kong’s Citizen News, pose for photos after announcing the end of operations on Jan 3, 2022.

Some long-standing outlets like the Chinese-language paper Ming Pao, known for its neutral reporting, remain in business. But increasingly it is only media that make clear their allegiance to Beijing that have much chance of avoiding a possible clash with the security law.

Chinese president Xi Jinping recently congratulated the government-affiliated Ta Kung Pao newspaper on its 120th anniversary.

“I hope the newspaper will carry forward its patriotic traditions, pursue innovative development, continue to grow its influence,” Xi said of the pro-Beijing outlet.

And self-censorship has taken root in the financial hub.

In April, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC) cancelled its long-running Human Rights Press Awards just before the scheduled announcement of the winners, reportedly over concerns about awarding reporting by now-defunct Stand News.

“Journalists need to be a little bit more clever about knowing where the red lines are and sensitive areas,” said FCC president Keith Richburg on the decision, adding: “We are living in China now.”

Lam warned that the erosion of Hong Kong’s independent journalism will be felt.

“Press freedom is like the air,” he said. “You don’t notice it until it’s gone.”