Rethinking "no-news day"
I read the column "Refuse the news and be yourself on June 11" (June 7, page 8) with great amusement, and not a little pity. How typically Chinese it is -- see something that disturbs you and instead of acting to repair or stop it, turn aside and try to pretend it doesn't exist, if only for a little while.
The problem The Media Warfare Alliance of Readers and Listeners addressed is real and getting worse, but the tactic it chose in response will have as little effect as blowing back at a typhoon has. The source of the problem is not the media; it is the audience, the very mass the alliance expects to rise up in protest for all of 24 hours. And the roots of the audience's fascination with lurid news presented in near-hysterical fashion by omniscient-seeming on-air personalities lie in the culture.
For reasons I can't fathom, the Chinese people are inordinately fond of gossip, the more salacious the better. And much of what the alliance complains about is little more than cheap gossip with all the seeds and pulp left in. The rest is real news with opinion, innuendo and a uniquely Chinese brand of iconoclasm plastered all over it.
As with cigarettes, alcohol and illegal drugs, if there were no market for it, there would be no purveyors of it. But there is a market for it, a nation-wide one, and until that market changes its tastes, news reportage in Taiwan will continue its downward spiral into sleaze and preposterous exaggeration.
Anyone who has ever tried it will tell you that changing public tastes, while not easy or fast, is possible given sincere and sustained effort. Not too long ago, motorists on the freeway regularly drove in the emergency lane to get around slow traffic, causing numerous accidents and near-accidents. Then the freeway police conducted a concerted campaign to end the practice, and within a few short months no one was driving outside the proper lanes except when told to by police or traffic-control signs. There is a lesson there that can be applied to many areas of society.
If the alliance is serious about reforming news reportage practices here, it must first face the fact that a day-long, week-long or even a month-long boycott of news programs is not going to do the trick. What's needed is a clear, unambiguous message to viewers and readers that the society they live in won't ever be any better or more rewarding than it is right now unless they begin refusing to accept the trash that's being shovelled at them by the media. Of course, that must be coupled with a drive aimed at promoting more responsible news sources so acceptable alternatives to what the alliance wants people to abandon will be available when needed.
Obviously, a program such as this is going to require publicity, lots of it, and that means money. Getting people to give up their favorite rumor-mongers and donate to programs aimed at encouraging others to do the same won't be easy. But if as many people are as fed up with the present situation as the alliance claims, it should be possible.
I suggest that the alliance rethink its plan for a "no-news day" and consider instead inaugurating a campaign to educate people on what proper news reportage is. And if it wants people joining its effort to clean up the media to use their real names in promoting the idea, it should start by coming out from behind its anonymous (and pretentiously hostile) organizational name and identify its members.
Kung Teh-wen
Taiwan
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry