Fri, Dec 19, 2008 page8

• EDITORIAL: Hollow promises of media freedom

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  Reporters Without Borders, an NGO devoted to press freedom, issued a statement on Wednesday saying that despite recent assurances to the contrary from President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), it was concerned that media independence in Taiwan remains under threat from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government.

  The statement highlighted KMT attempts to control the programming of Public Television Service (PTS). The party’s legislators have proposed that PTS would require item-by-item approval from the Government Information Office (GIO) for all budget matters.

  The KMT’s “campaign to reaffirm its influence over the public TV stations seems to have strengthened,” the statement read, before urging the president “to set up mechanisms that guarantee media independence.”

  Ma’s reply to an earlier statement by the group in October, in which he reiterated his inauguration speech promise that “Taiwan’s democracy should not be marred by … political interference in the media,” obviously didn’t satisfy them.

  Maybe it too is aware, like most people in Taiwan, of how little influence the president actually wields over KMT legislators — or the party in general, for that matter.

  In its October letter, Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Jean-Francois Julliard expressed concern about two incidents that took place earlier that month. The first was the resignation of several Radio Taiwan International senior managers, who claimed that the government had asked them not to broadcast reports critical of China. The second was the resignation of Central News Agency (CNA) deputy editor-in-chief Chuang Feng-chia (莊豐嘉), who said the agency’s reporters had been asked to drop stories deemed to be critical of Ma.

  In an open letter before his resignation, Chuang lamented that if things proceeded on their present course, one day CNA reportage might come to be regarded with the same skepticism as that of Xinhua news agency, the Chinese government mouthpiece.

  Chuang would have had no idea how quickly his prophecy would come to pass. One glance at the headlines from Monday’s CNA English-language service reveals an ominous Xinhua-like appearance.

  “Keelung expects renewed prosperity from direct shipping with China,” “History made as new cross-strait flight route inaugurated,” “Southern counties eyeing tourism opportunities from direct links,” “Maritime pilots welcome opening of cross-strait shipping links,” are just a few of the overwhelmingly positive headlines on offer, despite the fact that Taiwan is approaching an official period of recession.

  How quickly things have changed since January last year, when Reporters Without Borders founder and then secretary-general Robert Menard received the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy’s Asia Democracy and Human Rights Award for 2006.

  At the time, Menard told then-GIO chief Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) that his organization needed the Taiwanese government’s help to pressure China into releasing people jailed simply for what they had written. Given the government’s recent actions there seems to be little hope of this request being granted.

  When receiving his award, Menard also said that Reporters Without Borders would use the US$100,000 prize money to launch a new Chinese-language Web site to allow people in Chinese-speaking nations to be better informed.

  Thank goodness for this, because the way things are going, Taiwanese themselves may soon require other sources in the Chinese language if they want to learn of the health of the media in their country.
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