President Jiang Zemin's outburst against Hong Kong journalists topped a list of the 10 most striking news stories of 2000 in an Internet survey.
The Robert Chung Ting-yiu affair took second place and the Gary Cheng Kai-nam scandal was placed third by about 5,000 respondents to the online survey by RTHK and the Hong Kong Economic Times.
President Jiang's passionate reprimand of SAR reporters, labelling them as 'too simple, sometimes naive' struck a raw nerve in most respondents. The comments in October were made in response to a reporter's questions about whether Beijing had issued an 'imperial order' for Tung Chee-hwa to serve another term as Chief Executive.
Dr Chung, a University of Hong Kong pollster, disclosed he had been pressured by former vice-chancellor Cheng Yiu-chung to stop polling Mr Tung's approval ratings.
Gary Cheng, the former Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong vice-chairman, concealed from the Legislative Council one of his public relations firms and passed a confidential government document to a business contact.
The other top stories were, in descending order: Mr Tung's scrapping of the target to supply 85,000 new flats a year; the tom.com public listing frenzy; the Immigration Tower arson attack; missing autistic boy Yu Man-hon; the resignation of Housing Authority chairwoman Rosanna Wong Yick-ming; claims of the Li Ka-shing clan's dominance of the SAR economy and the assembly law arrest of student protesters.