Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) inauguration as president on May 20 marked the return to power of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) after eight years of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) rule and a watershed for media in Taiwan.
Over the past few months, the media have been transformed from tools to weapons. The media arena has become a new battlefield of political struggle. The professionalism and ethics that were once considered all-important to reporting have become vague and confused and the media have lost sight of their role as instruments of public service.
Furthermore, as Taiwan and China lift restrictions on each other’s media, there has now arisen in Taiwan a three-way competition between blue, green and red (pro-China) media.
As politics take over, the media no longer serve their role in upholding democracy, fairness, justice and human rights. Instead of pluralism and tolerance, they encourage blind faith and self-deception. That is the real tragedy.
Around the time when martial law was lifted in Taiwan in 1987, the media were an important force in promoting democracy.
By the time of the first transfer of political power — from the KMT to the DPP in 2000 — calls for the KMT, the government and the armed forces to withdraw from the media and for the creation of public television were widespread. Unfortunately, the changes were only partial, which is why we are seeing problems today.
When former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was re-elected in 2004, the KMT and allied parties claimed the vote had been swayed by the two bullets fired in an apparent assassination attempt against Chen and his vice president, Annette Lu (呂秀蓮).
Suspecting the attack to be a set-up, the KMT and its allies refused to accept the result of the election, sparking a long period of political unrest. The standoff was reflected in the media, which departed from professional neutrality in news reporting and took sides in the conflict.
Later, Chen’s government was implicated in a number of alleged corruption cases, including accusations that Chen had misused his “special affairs fund.” Since then, the media have had a field day publishing “leaks” and revealing “facts,” many of which proved to be unfounded.
With this trend of irresponsible reporting, the media have almost completely lost sight of journalistic ethics. Instead of clarifying issues, they muddy the waters, provoking increasing public discontent and criticism.
With its return to the Presidential Office, the KMT now has control of all branches of the central government and most local governments too, in effect creating a new one-party state that is as bad as, if not worse than, the old one.
The KMT and the government are taking control of national radio, the Public Television Service and the Central News Agency. At the same time, the government has given a green light for Chinese state-run and party-run media to set up offices in Taiwan.
Over the past six months, the red and blue media have fallen over themselves to join the chorus of praise on everything related to cross-strait relations, including the meetings and forums held by the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party, the meeting between the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS); the Beijing Olympics; and the government’s policies on a diplomatic truce, dovish defense and deregulation of cross-strait transport.
Striving to convince the public that peace reigns in the Taiwan Strait, the red and blue media insist that Taiwan’s sovereignty is not being diminished, even when the very name “Taiwan” disappears and all that remains in its place is “Chinese Taipei” or “Taipei, China.”
Even when bloody clashes broke out during November’s SEF-ARATS meeting in Taipei and when ARATS Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) addressed Ma as “you,” Hong Kong and Chinese media insisted that Ma had gained “face” and concrete benefits from the talks.
Since Ma took office, power has changed hands not just in terms of government but also in terms of the media, with the blue and red influences gaining the upper hand.
Taiwan’s second transfer of power was a turning point in the role of the media. Just as the DPP is now the opposition, so are its allies, the green media. No longer in the role of defending government policy, they have gone on the offensive and are no less aggressive in their criticism than the DPP.
The blue and green media would do well to bear in mind that they both belong to Taiwan. When they struggle against each other, they give the red media an advantage.
What they should both do is return to professional news reporting.
It is acceptable for the media to represent different political shades, but when it comes to reporting the news, they should stick to the facts.
Sadly, this is not the case in Taiwan. Even before May, there were problems such as broadcasting news without checking sources and interspersing it with commentary. Reports were often insufficiently researched, came from unreliable sources or were unbalanced.
Now, in addition to these faults, a serious phenomenon of “subjective structuring” has emerged in news compilation. Many newspapers have added new pages devoted to cross-strait political and economic news.
With so much reporting about China, the papers act as tools promoting unification.
In the case of politically charged court cases, they engage in trial by media, attempting to steer the cases and pronounce a verdict before they have even reached the court.
Jeffrey Dvorkin, of the journalism department at Ryerson University in Canada, said during a recent visit to Taiwan that the most important facet of news reporting was trustworthiness.
Only through accurate and balanced reporting can the media fulfill their social obligations, Dvorkin said. While newspapers in the US and Canada have various political standpoints, these are only expressed in editorials and opinion pieces, he said. When reporting news, they maintain neutrality.
There is no denying the fact that media in Taiwan today are divided into blue and green. Together with the red media, they are waging a three-way struggle. Politicians of both ruling and opposition parties seek to turn media professionals into political hatchet men by such means as “subjective structuring.”
In such circumstances, the media are gradually drifting away from their true role and are turning a blind eye to the downfall of democracy, national dignity, freedom and human rights.
Lu I-ming is the former publisher and president of Taiwan Shin Sheng Daily News.
TRANSLATED BY JULIAN CLEGG
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