Tue, May 11, 2004 page8

• Editorial: More media trickery will backfire

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  A recount of ballots cast in the presidential election finally began yesterday -- the largest vote recount in Taiwan's history. The local media's old habits of reporting unconfirmed information and rumors will probably recur in the coming days as the judicial authorities carry out this notable event.

  This phenomenon can be seen from yesterday's television coverage of the recount story. Taiwanese audiences will probably fall victim to endless live reports once again during the recount. The media organizations' abuse of the fourth right of democratic societies will drastically diminish their little remaining credibility.

  Yao Jen-to (姚人多), an assistant professor of sociology at National Tsinghua University who specializes in media criticism, said at a seminar on Sunday that the credibility of Taiwan's journalists has dropped to the second-to-last position among professions, besting only prostitution.

  Although this kind of survey is not entirely trustworthy and Yao's mention of the ranking was meant to satirize the news media, undeniably much harm has been done to Taiwan's media organizations since the presidential election campaign. The problem lies in the media's over-emphasis on sensationalism, and the competitive pressure to be the first to report a story -- even if this means not making efforts to confirm it.

  The problem is that the "news stories" the media have fought to report first are not facts but inaccurate reports made up either by these media organizations or by others. On the evening of the presidential election, for instance, all cable TV channels used false numbers before 6 pm to mislead the public to believe that the pan-blue camp's candidates, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜), were ahead of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) by more than a hundred thousand votes. When the pan-blue supporters were ready for huge celebrations on the streets, the Central Election Commission announced the official result later. This was a totally different result from what the pan-blue supporters had been led to expect throughout the evening: Chen and Lu won re-election by a margin of close to 30,000 votes.

  A call-in show host, Wang Ben-hu (汪笨湖), once said that 80 percent of Taiwan's media organizations represent a specific political stance, serving as cheerleaders for the pan-blue camp. Given this reality, we call upon other media organizations to strictly abide by professional journalism standards in the coming days of the recount. We advise them not to believe in unconfirmed information or report on so-called inside information provided by politicians.

  As the recount is under way, we understand that the pan-blue camp's aspiration is to alter the presidential election's results. The green camp hopes that the recount will prove that its victory has been legitimate.

  Yet Taiwan's voters are also watching closely the two camps' performance during this period. Their decisions regarding which parties they will support in the year-end legislative election will be based on the camps' behavior during this event.

  Both camps should therefore refrain from attempts to use the media to disseminate false information to influence the recount results. Otherwise they are not only making the media accomplices in the crime of destroying harmony in our society, but the politicians and parties that deliberately mislead the public also will be cast aside by the voters once the truth is known.
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