The spate of recent scandals involving the reporting of fake news stories in Taiwan continues to concern media observers. The constant need to pull in readers and viewers has many media outlets fabricating news stories and infringing on the privacy of citizens.
Concerned that Taiwan's media environment is deteriorating, the Lung Ying-tai Cultural Foundation (龍應台文化基金會) has invited three media experts to discuss their thoughts on the meaning of a responsible media in democratic societies.
"Our purpose is to emphasize the importance of creating appropriate journalism ethics," said Katherine Lee (李應平), CEO of the Lung Ying-tai Cultural Foundation.
That may be a tall order. Citing a US study analyzing the effectiveness of teaching news media rules and ethics, Taiwan National University journalism professor Flora Chang (張錦華) said short-term exposure to ethics may not build a solid foundation for ethical behavior, though it may improve reasoning and decision making.
She added that ethical standards could often conflict. "An over-emphasis on media ethics may limit freedom of the press, while [an emphasis on] freedom of the press may endanger national security," she said.
It is a dichotomy that Doreen Weisenhaus is fully aware off. The director of the University of Hong Kong's Journalism and Media Studies Center (JMSC) has written extensively on that Special Administrative Region's Basic Law, especially Article 23 - an anti-subversion clause that many observers feel has the potential to limit the freedom of Hong Kong's notoriously raucous media. Before arriving in Hong Kong, Weisenhaus was legal editor for The New York Times.
The Salon also features Hsu Lu (徐璐), a veteran Taiwanese reporter and current CEO of Chunghwa Telecom Foundation (中華電信基金會). In 1987, Hsu was one of the first reporters in Taiwan (sent by the pro-independence Independence Evening Post (自立晚報) to report in Beijing. Upon her return, the then-Chinese Nationalist government banned her from leaving Taiwan for a year.
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) spokesman, Thomas Hodges, will moderate the Salon and help field questions from the audience.
Taiwan’s renewable shortfall is a problem of execution, not resources. Japan’s long-cycle, joined-up energy planning is the model worth studying — but what Taiwan can borrow is the institutional machinery, not the politics. When Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) used his visit to Taipei last month to warn that the country needs far more electricity, he was naming a constraint its own planners already know well: Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) expects demand from the semiconductor and artificial intelligence (AI) sector alone to exceed 5 gigawatts (GW) by 2030. The harder question is not whether to build more capacity but which
In a projection room, visitors at the Re: Battle City exhibition at Kaohsiung’s Neiwei Arts Center are invited to sit and watch a 20-minute animated movie. Artist Chang Li-ren (張立人) created the movie with dolls he made by molding paper into crude, painted figurines. The dolls interact in a detailed and realistic Taiwanese cityscape. Outside the projection room, visitors can wander around a massive model of the city. A sizeable crowd happily takes pictures of what looks like the best dollhouse in Taiwan: the same props that were used to tell the story of the country’s descent into techno-dictatorship in the movie. The
The last time Taiwan’s foreign correspondents were invited to a special briefing with a sitting president was in 2015. That was two presidents ago under Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). But Thursday morning, President William Lai (賴清德) welcomed the nation’s international press corps warmly, speaking specifically to the theme of press freedom. Lai addressed Taiwan’s foreign press corps saying, “You live, work and report in Taiwan.” “Thank you for your professionalism and upholding the spirit of press freedom,” he continued. “As you engage in your work of journalism, you let the world see Taiwan.” The timing of this event, hosted by the Taiwan Foreign
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun’s (鄭麗文) recent trip to the US highlighted her party’s anti-Taiwan defense policies. Disapproval of their policies was strong among those who met with her. Republican Senator Dan Sullivan, said that the KMT was “playing with fire.” Democratic Representative Tom Suozzi reportedly said that Cheng’s party was “weakening deterrence.” Foreign policy maven David Sacks observed in Asia Nikkei that “many Americans struggle to see the logic behind the KMT’s refusal to fund the portion of the special defense budget pertaining to indigenous defense production.” The logic of the KMT’s decision to purchase only US
RSS