Media hushed about `Next' attack

While Taiwan's press say they do not stoop to the style that Lai's magazine follows, the China Times, to promote its sister publication China Times Weekly -- Next magazine's main competitor -- has run pieces about their weekly "scoop" on the newspaper's main page almost weekly.

Kuo Li-hsin (郭力昕), a professor at National Chengchi University, remarked that society has to differentiate between the various classes of media.

"Even though the [British] tabloid paper The Sun has a higher circulation, more than 10 times that of the mainstream newspapers such as The Times, The Independent, and The Guardian -- all of which have a circulation of around 200,000 to 300,000 -- the latter have never followed the lead of tabloids to cover trashy news," Kuo wrote in his opinion piece.

In a recent interview with Newsweek, Lai admitted that sometimes they overdo things.

"We sometimes overstep and sometimes make mistakes where we have to apologize on the front page or the cover. As long as we show the courage to face mistakes and apologize for it, we always learn," Lai said.