With the budget for the Public Television Service (PTS) frozen for a year, the legislature dealt PTS another blow on Dec. 10 when the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee passed a proposal that regulates the use of public broadcasting budgets.
The decision stated that the details of all expenditure for planning, production and broadcasting of news and other programs must be approved by competent authorities before a budget can be used. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世), who is behind the bill, also suggested increasing the number of directors and supervisory committee members at PTS because the current number is “unable to fully represent Taiwan’s diversity.”
Public media should be accountable to the public and independent of political control.
The actions of legislators, however, have clearly been aimed at using budget reviews and power over staff appointments to extend their political influence into PTS. This will destroy PTS’ original purpose, which was to establish a television station independent of any form of political interference. While budget reviews may not be as direct as content checks and censorship, this decision will have a tremendous effect on PTS management.
The predicament of PTS has revealed several serious problems that are threatening the development of public broadcasting in Taiwan.
The first involves control of speech. Because the Public Television Act (公視法) stresses stability of operational funds, PTS is able to maintain its independence with a fixed budget.
However, by considering budget review controls and demanding that production and broadcasting budgets be approved by the authorities, the legislators are using economics to bring free speech in public media under political control.
The second problem involves how the current design of the public broadcasting system is dependent on party-political patronage. How many board directors and supervisory committee members does PTS really need? Why 15 and not 21?
As with the halving of legislators, this process reflects the interests of political forces rather than serious thought about the design of the system.
If PTS’ board of directors does not represent diversity, the problem is not the number of directors but rather how the board is set up to reflect party representation in the legislature. No attention is paid to acquiring talent from NGOs, for example.
Legislators can make whatever adjustments they wish to management based on personal views. This means that the number of board directors and supervisors can be changed at any time if problems arise.
The third problem involves the mistake of equating “public” with “belonging to the state.” The freezing of the PTS budget a year ago and its recent conditional unfreezing reflect the government’s attitude that, since it provides the funds, PTS should do as it is told.
The adoption of a conditional system for budget approvals contravenes the spirit of the Public Television Act.
Article 15 states that the board of directors shall “review and approve PTS’ fiscal budget and final accounts” and “decide the orientation of PTS programming and development and supervise their implementation.”
To protect media professionalism and autonomy, administrative and legislative institutions should not interfere with programming policy at any time, including budget reviews. When will legislators realize that public broadcasting is different to other state institutions?
Tang Shih-che is an associate professor and Jian Miao-ju is an assistant professor at the Department of Communications and Graduate Institute of Telecommunications at National Chung Cheng University.
TRANSLATED BY DREW CAMERON
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