【明報專訊】Bao Choy Yuk-ling, a producer with Radio Television Hong Kong, accessed the public registries to obtain license plate information. She has been found guilty of two counts of "false statements" and fined $6,000 in total. Accessing the public registries is an important tool for journalists to find the truth. Now that Choy has been found guilty of such practice, journalists are worried that the precedent will become the sword of Damocles that greatly restricts investigative journalism and thus undermines the public's right to know. The government should discuss the matter with the journalism industry to strike an appropriate balance between the protection of privacy and accessing the public registries for journalistic use. It should make use of facts to show that freedom of the press has not been tightened in Hong Kong but remains as open as before.