The past week has seen yet more evidence of the National Communications Commission (NCC) encroaching on freedom of speech by punishing media outlets for making innocent mistakes.
The NCC was apparently not satisfied with fining SET-TV NT$1 million (US$30,000) for running mistaken archival footage in a documentary on the 228 Incident. Now, it has decided that it wants to huff and puff and be the tough new kid on the block by handing out fines like party favors to several other stations. It also put SET-TV on notice again for inadvertently running faulty data on the Democratic Progressive Party primary -- and for not banging its head on the floor before NCC commissioners by way of apology.
"Independent media consultants" and "media specialists" have been consulted in dishing out these punishments. These, of course, are categories of people that should ring warning bells for anyone who has observed the painfully unintelligent -- if not politically partisan -- contribution of media watchers in this country.
Even more laughable was a lecture given this week by the commission to CNN, a global broadcaster whose Asia feed comes from Hong Kong, over what the NCC judged to be excessive coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre, and in particular images of the mass murderer pointing his gun at the camera.
Given that CNN has no studio in Taiwan, it is perplexing what the NCC is expecting the Taiwanese representatives of the company to do. Censor broadcasts of breaking news stories? Edit the Asia feed to conform to the sensibilities of NCC wowsers? Shut the feed down altogether? Possibly so, and if so, we might ask why the NCC just doesn't come straight out and say that it admires the state-controlled media environments of Singapore, China, Thailand and every other Asian country that pays lip service to the terms "democracy" and "free press."
The Consumers' Foundation, an organization that purports to represent consumers but in fact reliably represents only the interests of its board members, has endorsed the NCC as a body to whom complainants should flee for a hearing. The foundation has established itself as an organization that feeds on undeserved media attention. When it is given that attention -- including in this newspaper -- too often its attacks on the private sector or the government are sensational, wrong or, in the case of its dire predictions of high-speed rail derailments, fictional and mischievous.
With such groups giving it moral support, media outlets -- including English-language newspapers such as the Taipei Times -- should expect to be looked into at any time, and for reasons possibly unrelated to offending reports, by people who do not declare their interests as political appointments.
In what appears to be a grim joke on its semi-literate English-language Web site, one of the "missions" of the NCC is said to be "preserving the independence of the media." We agree, and would suggest that, given the paternalistic role it has awarded itself, the best thing the NCC's eight male commissioners and token female can do to fulfill this mandate is to cease functioning altogether.
The Taipei Times calls on media outlets to oppose the NCC's interference with a free press. There is nothing the media do that cannot be dealt with by the courts under existing laws and the direct impact of community feedback. It would be interesting to see what this Star Chamber for bored academics would do, for example, if all media outlets teamed up and refused to pay their fines.
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