Pavements teeming with people; jumbled shop signs in garish colours in all directions; the constant hum and blaring horns of traffic; the mixed smells of perfume, cooking fat and exhaust fumes.

Endless noise and haste made Hong Kong an exhilarating place to visit, but it was a relief to escape into a park for the occasional half hour of peace.

The same contrast could be found in the city’s newspapers. Let’s take The Sun as the extreme example – not Rupert’s UK toy but a regional daily of the same name, one of several in the former colony that are broadsheet in size but shamelessly tabloid in style.

This popular pro-Beijing paper, owned by the Oriental Press Group, was almost tripping over itself with enthusiasm for its splash on an industrial accident on Friday 26 October.

‘Man made island of death’ screamed its main headline in Cantonese, holding up a huge picture of the giant tube where a workers’ platform had collapsed.

‘Bird cage platform, 1 dead, 14 injured’ explained the subsidiary headline, with three of the unconscious victims’ displayed on stretchers across the top of the paper, obviously in serious conditions and clearly identifiable.

This explicit, exaggerated approach was continued throughout the paper: bloody car smashes, foreign battle scenes – all with gory pictures – and a whole inside section that blatantly promoted hard-core pornography and prostitution.

I soon got the idea of what The Sun was about, mirrored by similar content in other daily Cantonese papers like the Oriental Daily and Apple Daily, all exploiting Hong Kong’s lax media regulation of taste and decency.

It was this sensationalism that made it a pleasant respite to read the South China Morning Post, a 109-year-old English language paper presenting news, politics, business, entertainment and sport in a far more digestible style and order.

The Post’s page one on 26 October also reported on the industrial accident, but only as a write-off nib in the left-hand column.

The sober splash was instead a row over Hong Kong government plans for a new man-made beach that could wipe out more than 200 marine and bird species.

Although news junkies might feel the Post had missed the main story, they would have to appreciate the composed structure of the paper to realise that everything is given its space in the right place.

‘Bridge worker killed in platform collapse’ was the restrained splash headline for the paper’s third ‘City’ section that concentrated on local news, using a more controlled inset picture of a victim who couldn’t be identified.

Other local stories in this City section included reports about the lack of air in crowded parts of the city, the feud surrounding a well-known restaurateur’s funeral, the jailing of a singer for groping and the death of a 16-year-old joyrider.

All good, hard news but told with proper journalistic taste – and certainly nothing obscene or with titillating pictures like in The Sun.

Returning to the 20-page lead section of the Post, the front is used to display the main ‘issue’ stories of the day, the inside broadsheet pages then turning to wider China news, then to Asia and world reports, and finally a serious op-ed spread.

The second section is ten broadsheet pages of ‘Business’, then 14 broadsheet pages of City (which includes Sport), followed by 12 tabloid pages of ‘Life Style’, 16 tabloid pages of ‘Directory’ classifieds and a commercial 12 broadsheet page insert on Indonesia.

It is with this determined structure that the Post commands respect across Hong Kong, coming top in a recent survey asking residents to score the credibility of media, with The Sun’s frenzied displays coming bottom.

There have been a few reports that the Post sometimes ignores mainland China controversies, and although these are always denied by the paper’s Malaysian owners, the Kuok family, the ongoing scrutiny feels healthy.

The South China Morning Post sells 108,047 copies a day according to the latest official figures, with just over 94,093 of these print sales.

Nearly 14,000 are recorded as digital sales, which the Post is growing by cleverly tempting readers with initial free access to its site for a set number of visits per month – with subscriptions required if more is wanted. Currently, there is also a free app.

The Post was once said to be the most profitable newspaper in the world on a per reader basis. Although profits have declined during the recession, expansion is still possible as the wider Chinese market continues to open.

I just hope the Post can do this without losing its structured grip on reality, which should be seen as a major strength.