The controversy over Han Fu-yu (韓福宇), an intern at the Chinese-language China Times who joined several Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in hurling water balloons at Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers last week, hit a new low after the paper on Tuesday ran a front-page cartoon accusing the pan-green camp of launching a witch hunt against “a child.”
The cartoon depicts a large, angry man with a DPP emblem on his right sleeve, using giant pliers to squeeze the throat of a young student holding a water balloon. The title reads: “An apologetic child being hunted down by grown-ups.”
The China Times also issued a three-point statement on Tuesday voicing regret that a young man’s “impulsive act has been exaggerated to the extent that some people say it is a national security issue.”
Han, a Taiwanese studying at the Communication University of China on a Chinese government scholarship, has been dogged by conspiracy theories since the incident.
He has been accused of being a member of the Communist Youth League of China and a Chinese Communist Party agent tasked with promoting communism in Taiwan. Some people have even accused him of being a spy.
No one should be attacked for their political beliefs. However, politics aside, it is difficult to overlook the underlying ethical problem stemming from the balloon incident, especially the lack of journalistic ethics.
First, Han, along with two other interns, was escorted into the Legislative Yuan by China Times entertainment section deputy editor-in-chief Chang Yi-wen (張怡文), despite Chang knowing that none of the interns held the media passes required to enter the legislature. Chang gave tacit consent to a KMT lawmaker’s assistant who helped to get them inside. This is a clear abuse of media power.
Second, regardless of his political stance, Han should not have forfeited his role as a journalism intern and an objective observer. He should have kept his distance, instead of letting his ideology or personal preference dictate his actions.
In Taiwan’s highly polarized society and media environment, where the political affiliation of a person can almost always be determined by the newspapers they read, it is difficult for journalists to remain impartial.
It is a daily challenge for pan-green camp reporters to refrain from rolling their eyes during news conferences held by KMT members, or for pan-blue camp journalists to sit calmly when DPP lawmakers sneer at their KMT counterparts.
However, what matters is that few succumb to their inner urges and abandon their journalistic ethics.
Finally, a media conglomerate using its own newspaper to attack its critics is unprofessional and unethical. It is bad enough to instruct reporters to defend their bosses in news articles; it is worse to treat the paper as a propaganda machine.
It is also irresponsible to try to downplay the balloon incident by painting Han as an impulsive and ignorant youngster.
Being older does not give one the right to be rude and arrogant, just like being younger does not come with a free pass to act impulsively and ignorantly. Age should never be used as an excuse for one’s actions.
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