Proposed rules for media spark debate on freedom

While the Government Information Office (GIO) attempts to establish new rules for the media, debate about freedom of the press is raging among government officials, academics and media professionals.

GIO Director-General Arthur Iap (葉國興) told the Chinese-language media that the GIO is establishing a new law to prevent the media from issuing mistaken reports and violating the public's privacy.

Iap said the GIO, which is in charge of managing Taiwan's media, is developing the new rules in response to numerous complaints from the public.

The GIO's announcement has in turn sparked criticism from most local media.

Need for regulation

Iap, however, is standing by the office's efforts.

"Those media organizations attacked something they don't even know. This is what makes them so terrifying," Iap (葉國興) said in a phone interview with the Taipei Times.

"Currently, there are no regulations governing the media's use of high-technology products [to deliver their message] and no rules covering the media's marketing strategies [that often entail resorting to sensational coverage]. We want to establish new regulations to deal with this," Iap said.

The Journalist magazine president Wang Chien-chuang (王健壯), and the United Daily News in a June 8 editorial, pointed to the US' guarantees of freedom of the press and argued that the GIO's rules would violate this freedom. The two say the law would be nothing more than a new form of the Publishing Law (出版法), which was enforced for some 70 years in Taiwan and abolished in 1999 by the then KMT government.

The United Daily News said that current regulations, such as the Criminal Law, are enough to govern the media's performance.

"Setting up a new law for those concerns is just ridiculous," the newspaper said in the editorial.

Academics and media watchdogs, however, have a different point of view.

"If the media is the fourth estate, who would have the right to regulate this fourth estate, which has been abused and has no idea about self-restraint?" said Lu Shih-xiang (盧世祥), an adviser to the Association of Taiwan Journalists.

Chen Ping-hung (陳炳宏), an associate professor at National Taiwan Normal University's Graduate Institute of Mass Communication, said that he agrees with the government's involvement in managing the media, adding that the local media's performance has been seriously lacking self-restraint.

"Governing the media by means of regulation is the last way for us, but I am pessimistic about the local media's ability to restrain itself. The government, on the other hand, should encourage non-government organizations to get involved and eventually have them replace what it is doing in the future," Chen said.

The performance of the local media has generated controversy. Scoop weekly cited freedom of the press last December when it gave away a sex-VCD featuring former politician Chu Mei-feng (璩美鳳).

The Chinese-language newspaper China Times and Next magazine printed stories about two secret funds worth NT$3.5 billion belonging to the National Security Bureau in March. The move led to prosecutors searching and seizing the editions and sparked debate about how to balance national security and freedom of the press.

A matter of balance

Lin Shih-chung (林世宗), a law professor at Soochow University, said that the media should not be afraid of regulations. Lin said an appropriate law would protect freedom of press and bring order to Taiwan's media.