Perhaps showing its commitment to "watchdog journalism" yet again, The Journalist (新新聞) magazine yesterday accused embattled Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) of mobilizing various social groups to place advertisements in newspapers in support of her defamation suit against the magazine.
The magazine's reports argued that Lu was deliberately manipulating public opinion by asking the groups to endorse advertisements supporting her position without notifying them of the content of the advertisements, which were published in mid-December.
In response, director of the vice presidential office, Tsai Ming-hua (蔡明華), yesterday flatly denied the magazine's accusation. She said, "The Journalist is trying to blur the focus [of the dispute] since the magazine has failed to present evidence," in defense of its claim that Lu had called its editor-in-chief to circulate a rumor that President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was having an affair with his translator, Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴).
The Journalist's editor-in-chief, Yang Chao (楊照), last week stated at a press conference that it was he who had received the vice president's alleged phone call on his mobile phone.
This prompted Tsai to suggest that Yang produce mobile phone records as evidence. In fact, in Taiwan mobile phone records showing both calls made and received are issued only at the request of prosecutors.
According to a report in the magazine yesterday, DPP Taipei City Councilor Lan Mei-chin (藍美津), a founder of several religious organizations, Master Ching-yao (淨耀法師), and Chuang Hsiu-mei (莊秀美), wife of DPP Legislator Chiu Chui-chen (邱垂貞), all said that they gave their agreement to the vice presidential office due to their past connections with Lu, when asked whether their institutions' names could be placed on the advertisements. They, said, however that they were not shown the content of the advertisements beforehand.
"It was definitely not a spontaneous move made on our initiative," Chuang was reported to have told the magazine.
Chief of the women's department at the DPP's Taipei headquarters, Chiang Hsuen-ching (江雪卿), moreover, said that it was Tsai who contacted her for endorsement. Tsai, however, said yesterday that she neither knew Chiang, nor had ever called her.
The magazine also said that drafts of the endorsement advertisements were faxed from the vice presidential office direct to the leaders of the groups, as the fax number on the original copies of the layout revealed. It therefore concluded that Lu was the source of the advertisements.
Tsai did not deny this but said, "We faxed a copy to them of the advertisement they had endorsed for us. It's no big deal."
In addition, Lu's secretary, Su Yen-fei (蘇妍妃), said yesterday that Master Ching-yao voluntarily gave a list of six religious groups to Su which he said would like to support the vice president, when Su and he went in the same car to Taoyuan County on Dec. 13.
Su then forwarded the list to other groups which had agreed to endorse Lu's advertisements without the knowledge that some of these six groups might disagree with the content of the advertisements.
Su, however, admitted that she did not hear the master say that he would like to read the content of the advertisement before it was published.
The magazine also added that three Taiwan Independence Party (
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