Ask anyone their opinion of Taiwanese media and you would get answers of all kinds — from interesting, dynamic and competitive to brain-dead, unprofessional and lacking in global perspective.
The truth may lie somewhere in between, but the discussion of Taiwanese media and its challenges would have to include growing Chinese influence and the local industry’s struggle between commercial success and core journalistic values.
A recent incident in Hong Kong and a column on Taiwan’s media provided a good opportunity to examine what Taiwan’s media is all about.
Kevin Lau (劉進圖), former editor-in-chief of Hong Kong’s Ming Pao, was allegedly stabbed six times by two men on Wednesday last week when he got out of his car. He is now in stable condition after multiple operations.
Known for his strong criticism of the Hong Kong government, Lau was reassigned to another position in January. Observers were suspicious that the reassignment and the attack were both politically motivated, as China is reportedly seeking tighter control over the territory’s media.
The case was not the first time that a member of Hong Kong’s media has been attacked in recent years. Neither was it the first time Beijing had reportedly interfered with personnel changes in a media organization. China has used its influence and had advertisers withdraw their advertisements from media outlets that criticized Beijing and Hong Kong authorities.
While there has been no reported attacks on media members in Taiwan, Lau’s case could strike fear into local media circles at a time of growing Chinese influence on various sectors — media included.
So far Beijing’s influence on Taiwan’s media has been limited to the financial side, as several media organizations either have business ties to China or aim to develop such relationships. Self-censorship has become common among these outlets, with their complete disregard of human rights issues in China: Falun Gong, Xinjiang and Tibet, among others.
No one knows whether there will be another Lau in Taiwan if this nation continues its pro-China stance under President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration.
Meanwhile, an article published by Foreign Policy magazine’s Web site recently raised eyebrows. The article, titled “Freedom, Fried,” discussed the status of Taiwanese media and has been translated by many outlets and circulated on social media.
The author described Taiwan’s freewheeling media as salacious and superficial, focusing only on inward-looking, sensational and mundane reporting. Journalism has been so bad that antipathy among consumers leads them to find other news sources, he wrote.
The reasons the author ignored the “China factor” in the recent development of Taiwan media is unknown. Also intriguing is that the column quoted several employees from the pro-China Want Want China Times Group who sang the praises of Chinese media’s “sense of history and worldly perspective” without mentioning Beijing’s censorship.
Yet the condition the author writes of is common knowledge. Most journalists know when they produce another “junk food” piece.
Media insiders describe this as a vicious cycle: Sensational reporting generates higher readership and ratings and Taiwanese tend to pay little attention to international news, so media outlets keep feeding the public the news they like, rather than the news they are supposed to know about.
At the end of the day, either the media or the audience will have to take initiative and make a change that will facilitate a positive and virtuous cycle.
Facing a double challenge — from China and from within — Taiwanese media can be expected to see more hardship on the way to a new age. Local journalism has managed to do the unthinkable before — breaking the decades-long restriction of the authoritarian regime. Now it must happen again.
Xiaomi Corp founder Lei Jun (雷軍) on May 22 made a high-profile announcement, giving online viewers a sneak peek at the company’s first 3-nanometer mobile processor — the Xring O1 chip — and saying it is a breakthrough in China’s chip design history. Although Xiaomi might be capable of designing chips, it lacks the ability to manufacture them. No matter how beautifully planned the blueprints are, if they cannot be mass-produced, they are nothing more than drawings on paper. The truth is that China’s chipmaking efforts are still heavily reliant on the free world — particularly on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing
Keelung Mayor George Hsieh (謝國樑) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Tuesday last week apologized over allegations that the former director of the city’s Civil Affairs Department had illegally accessed citizens’ data to assist the KMT in its campaign to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) councilors. Given the public discontent with opposition lawmakers’ disruptive behavior in the legislature, passage of unconstitutional legislation and slashing of the central government’s budget, civic groups have launched a massive campaign to recall KMT lawmakers. The KMT has tried to fight back by initiating campaigns to recall DPP lawmakers, but the petition documents they
A recent scandal involving a high-school student from a private school in Taichung has reignited long-standing frustrations with Taiwan’s increasingly complex and high-pressure university admissions system. The student, who had successfully gained admission to several prestigious medical schools, shared their learning portfolio on social media — only for Internet sleuths to quickly uncover a falsified claim of receiving a “Best Debater” award. The fallout was swift and unforgiving. National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University and Taipei Medical University revoked the student’s admission on Wednesday. One day later, Chung Shan Medical University also announced it would cancel the student’s admission. China Medical
Construction of the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County’s Hengchun Township (恆春) started in 1978. It began commercial operations in 1984. Since then, it has experienced several accidents, radiation pollution and fires. It was finally decommissioned on May 17 after the operating license of its No. 2 reactor expired. However, a proposed referendum to be held on Aug. 23 on restarting the reactor is potentially bringing back those risks. Four reasons are listed for holding the referendum: First, the difficulty of meeting greenhouse gas reduction targets and the inefficiency of new energy sources such as photovoltaic and wind power. Second,
RSS