Today is Journalists’ Day in the Republic of China, though few know it and even fewer will mark it as it commemorates the promulgation of the Protection of Journalists and Public Opinion Organization Act in 1933, back when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was running the other side of the Taiwan Strait.
However, there will be a march today to protest against media monopoly, inspired by the controversy over Want Want China Times Group’s planned acquisition of the cable television services owned by China Network Systems. The march is being organized by groups such as the Campaign for Media Reform and the Anti-Media Monster Youth Alliance, who are not only outraged by the planned purchase and the media monopoly that it would create, but also by the coverage given by the Chinese-language China Times newspaper, the China Times Weekly magazine and the CtiTV news channel of critics to the merger, especially Academia Sinica research fellow Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌).
The Want Want China Times Group was forced to issue an apology to Huang this week after an investigation found he had not paid students to take part in a protest against the proposed merger. However, it denied claims it fabricated the story. Given the degree of venom directed at Huang over the past few weeks, that grudging apology will probably cut little ice.
Huang was not the only one damaged by this controversy. Several senior editors and reporters at China Times resigned or put in for early retirement because of the newspaper’s severe criticism of opponents of the merger, including a deputy managing editor, deputy editorial page editor, international news center director and two senior investigative reporters. Three members of CtiTV’s ethics committee also resigned.
At the end of last month, CtiTV spokesperson Huang Chun-ren (黃俊仁) said its coverage was not meant to tarnish anyone’s reputation, but rather to make the point that paid social movements should be scrutinized. The Want Want China Times Group was also victimized by false rumors and it simply wanted to find out the truth, Huang said.
It is a little hard to believe that the group places such a premium on the truth, since its chairman Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明) told a public hearing earlier this year that he saw nothing wrong with getting paid by the Chinese government to write news for it for publication here. The idea that social movements, paid or otherwise, deserve special scrutiny also smacks of China’s authoritarianism and censorship.
More importantly, given that the law bars political parties, the government and the military from influencing the media, why can a similar stance not be taken against China? There has been enough slippage in media standards in recent years. We don’t need to copy methods from across the Strait.
A Gallup poll earlier this year found that as many as 86 percent of Taiwanese respondents said the news media enjoyed considerable freedom, with only 9 percent feeling otherwise. That “yes” ratio was the highest among all Asian countries and areas covered in the study and the 17th-highest globally. However, the latest freedom of the press ranking released by Freedom House in May this year ranked Taiwan 47th in the world, one place higher than last year, but down since 2008, when the Democratic Progressive Party was in power and Taiwan was ranked 32nd.
The truth is that Taiwan’s fourth estate is under threat from efforts to control it by conglomerates such as Want Want, by politicians and by China, but it is also under threat from a lack of adherence to professional standards, and a willingness to report first and fact-check later. The feeding frenzies and media packs that surround headline makers or even peripheral players can be off-putting, both to their victims and to viewers and readers. Yet any attempt to rein in the more cowboy antics draws cries of press censorship.
A trustworthy, reliable media is crucial to Taiwan’s democracy. That is worth remembering on Journalists’ Day.
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
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
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