GIO plays down fears over press monitoring scheme

The Government Information Office yesterday clarified that it has no intention of controlling the nation's media, reacting to public criticism over its new proposal to evaluate the media's performance.

GIO Director General Arthur Iap (葉國興) yesterday explained that his department believes a comprehensive investigation into the media would help the office understand the industry better.

Because media performance has been increasingly questioned by the public, the GIO appointed the Foundation for the Prevention of Public Damage by the Media (新聞公害防治基金會) to evaluate the nation's six main Chinese-language newspapers: China Times, United Daily News, The Liberty Times, Taiwan Daily News, China Times Express and The United Evening News.

The foundation would look into the six dailies' news coverage from page one to page four from the perspective of justice, objectivity, appropriateness and accuracy. Results of the evaluation would be released every two months. Criteria for how the four perspectives would be judged were not provided.

Aside from the evaluation over the contents of the six major dailies, the GIO also plans to investigate how newspapers are funded.

Legislators from the DPP and the KMT, journalism professors and industry's professionals said that the GIO's proposal would damage the nation's freedom of the press.

DPP Legislator Shen Fu-hsiung (沈富雄) said that the government has no place to judge the media's coverage, while KMT Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) said that the GIO should abandon its proposal right away.

"While we should be concerned about freedom of speech, the government should not limit the range of opinions by evaluating the media," said Su Herng (蘇蘅), professor of journalism at National Chengchi University.

In yesterday's press conference, Iap emphasized that the evaluation would only be a reference for the GIO and wouldn't have any legal status, and insisted that the media is simply "a industry" to him, and it should not be afraid of an evaluation.

Lu Shih-xiang (盧世祥), founder of the foundation, said the media should be able to monitor itself, but several incidents prove that regulating the media could be the way to improve the situation.

Last June, the GIO was attempting to establish a new law to prevent the media from issuing false reports and violating the public's privacy.

However, most of the media organizations criticized the idea as "ridiculous" then.

"I would definitely like to control the media, if I could. But there is no way for me to do that," Iap said.