The Kaohsiung City Government recently worked through the night under the protection of barbed-wire barriers and hundreds of police officers to dismantle a statue of late dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and remove his name from its cultural center. The media, meanwhile, broadcast images of the physical clashes between police officers and protesters, but failed to provide any analysis of the event.
When a similar controversy arose as police dispersed demonstrators protesting the closing of the Lo Sheng (Happy Life) Sanatorium in Taipei County, the media provided similarly biased and sensationalized reporting of the incident.
Whether controversy leads a society to progress or regress is contingent on how it is resolved -- by democratic means and appropriate procedures -- or counterproductive ones.
One of the principal functions of the news media should be to provide a platform for rational and fair discussion of such incidents. By their very nature, societies encounter conflicts, and Taiwan is no exception. It is therefore important that the media rise to the challenge and provide the necessary channels for discussion. This could help the public find common ground and prevent future problems, both of which are helpful in settling controversy and reaching a resolution that society as a whole finds acceptable.
Taiwan Public Television, for example, should be commended for its coverage of the sanatorium incident by choosing to run programs promoting public dialogue.
Unfortunately, the media have a tendency to do the opposite.
When reporting on the removal of Chiang statues or the sanatorium, to use two recent examples, the media sacrificed their role as a public instrument by focusing only on scenes of conflict. The incidents themselves should only be the tip of the iceberg in reporting. Every day, many things happen in the nation, but because they aren't related to elections, unification, independence, the media choose to ignore them.
For example, during the critical period when the fate of the aforementioned sanatorium was still being decided, political TV programs should have invited patients and organizations opposed to the closing, as well as heads of relevant central and local government agencies, to participate in a public discussion on the program. But this didn't happen.
To remedy this, some corrective measures are in order:
As the National Communications Commission (NCC) is charged with overseeing commercial broadcast media, it should ensure that broadcast media and political talk shows offer balanced coverage of major community and public issues.
In some countries, TV stations must report to supervisory government organizations every three months on their handling of important news in order to have their licenses renewed. Sadly, the situation here is different, hence the failure by all the 24-hour news channels to provide constructive debate on issues that matter.
The NCC should fully implement the Broadcasting and Television Law (
Police officers responded violently to the group of reporters covering the removal of protesters in front of the sanatorium on March 11. Such violence is uncalled for and the mainstream media should jointly condemn the police's action.
This incident clearly demonstrates that the Assembly and Parade Law (
Lo Shih-hung is the founder of the Campaign for Media Reform. Chad Liu is an assistant professor in the department of communications at National Chung Cheng University.
Translated by Marc Langer
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations