TTV feud gathers steam

The conflict inside the news department at Taiwan Television Enterprise (TTV) is escalating after the department's head, Chen Ching-hsi (陳清喜), reacted angrily yesterday to being asked by his colleagues to resign.

A petition signature drive calling for Chen to resign began on June 13 to protest his management of the news department, and, in particular, his alleged recruitment of "unqualified" staff. But Chen had remained quiet until yesterday.

He expressed his side of the story by posting a 4,000 character e-mail on the department's Web site entitled, "The news is not the exclusive preserve of a small group of people," and said that the petition was a result of an internal conflict over promotions.

He said that former TTV anchor Dai Chung-jen (戴忠仁) was the leader of the resignation drive and went on to claim that, "I covered up Dai's sexual harassment of a female colleague, but Dai has turned around and tried to get me to resign."

Signatories to the petition, however, said that Chen was just trying to confuse the issue.

Yu Chieh-chun (游捷鈞), one of the signatories to the petition, said: "We are not demanding his resignation because of any internal conflict. We don't want to hurt the station's image."

He said that if Chen believed that the petition was a result of a mere "internal conflict about promotions" he was very much mistaken.

Liu Kuo-tung (劉國同), who also signed the petition, said that Chen's allegation about Dai was a "figment of Chen's imagination."

Taiwan Television Enterprise said in a statement released yesterday evening that it would establish an investigative committee to look into the case. TTV President Hu Yuan-hui (胡元輝) refused to comment.

Yu Chieh-chun (游捷鈞), one of the signatories to the petition, said that he decided to sign it for the sake of the department's future.

"Chen has been in his post for seven months, but the ratings for news programs have not improved. Also, the people he hired are not qualified, which has weakened the department's competitiveness," Yu said.

Chen was a reporter for the United Daily News, the China Times, the Capital Morning Post, the Independence Evening Post, and was the marketing director of Public TV before taking up his appointment at TTV.

Last week Hu told local Chinese-language media that it was positive for the channel's staff to point out flaws in the department but that they had used the wrong method to do so.

Liu said that the station should consider why so many people signed the petition even after Hu tried to mediate the conflict.

"Every employee has his or her own judgement, and management should think about why 74 employees signed such a petition," Lu said.

Meanwhile, an employee who didn't sign the petition and wished to remain anonymous gave the Taipei Times his view of Chen.

"I have my personal reasons for not signing the petition. From my perspective, Chen doesn't understand the way TV functions. TTV has its own traditions. Chen has wanted to destroy the old customs of the department, but he never sought to understand the culture of this station," said the employee.

Those who signed the petition are planning to take the issue to the station's shareholders' meeting on June 26th.