Women's-rights advocates yesterday criticized the nation's media coverage of the recent controversy stirred up by a Japanese sex guide as an indication of a lack of journalistic professionalism and gender awareness in Taiwan.
The 200-page guidebook, entitled Paradise in Taiwan, details information on Taipei and Kaohsiung cities' sex industry.
"What we saw on the [TV] news channels and in the newspapers concerning the sex trade was news coverage that was almost pornographic in its perspective," said Chang Chin-hua (張錦華), professor of the Graduate Institute of Journalism at the National Taiwan University.
Chang made the comments at a press conference held yesterday by the Modern Women Foundation, a non-profit organization seeking to promote awareness of women's issues.
"This sort of coverage is, unconsciously, an insult to women everywhere," Chang said.
Chang said that when newspaper media placed sex-related news on their main pages with large photographs and explicit details, "what the newspaper media did was simply to stimulate the readers' interest in sensationalism."
"When the TV news channels pad out their coverage of sex-related issues with provocative terms and close-ups of the bodies of female interviewees," Chang said, "the perspective of the news coverage turns from professional reporting to pornography."
Chang added that it was regrettable that all the broadcasting and newspaper media had become the sex guide's best publicity by continually running stories on the sex trade.
"The media ought to address more pressing issues than that of the sex guide's content," said Pan Wei-kang (
She said issues such as women's autonomy over their own body and sex life, as well as insights on the causes of prostitution and measures to eradicate, it would be more appropriate.
Wang Ching-feng (王清峰), a lawyer and long-time advocate of women's rights, echoed Pan's remarks.
Wang said that the media extensively covered the Japanese sex guide "but neglected to evaluate other issues revealed by this sex guide, such as the attitude of Japanese men, chauvinism and sexual power, just to name a few."
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