A campaign of "hacktivism" aimed at improving the quality of local television news has left reporters fearing on-air ambushes from a giant tiger or a cheese-flinging martial arts expert.
Shock tactics have been employed by a New York-based group that says it is fed up with TV stations feeding viewers an insipid diet of minor car accidents, petty crime and house fires in which nobody gets hurt.
In an attempt to get "real news" back on the agenda, the Newsbreakers group has hijacked live reports in several states with an array of characters including Cheese Ninja, an alcoholic religious correspondent called Dizzy Monk and the Reverend Utah Snakewater, who delivers on-air exorcisms. The activists -- a team of technicians, actors and a former journalist -- post footage of their successful "busts" spliced with their own campaign messages on their website, newsbreakers.org.
"Television news today is a voyeur's fantasy," said Chris Landon, who set up Newsbreakers while working in a TV newsroom in New York.
"It has shifted from the role of challenging those in power to exploiting the weak, or those involved in personal tragedy. TV defines reality for a lot of people ... We just want to startle them enough to disrupt that view of reality."
Their tactics have upset producers at stations whose bulletins have been sabotaged.
"I'm not sure they're doing a good job of getting out the message of what they'd like to see changed," said Lori Robertson, managing editor of the American Journalism Review. "Most of the news directors I've seen quoted don't understand what their complaint is."
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique