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Foreign media leaving Taiwan, legislator says

Many mainstream foreign media groups have withdrawn from Taiwan and relocated to China and other Asian countries, diminishing the nation's international profile, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said yesterday.

"While the government vows to build the nation into an information hub in the Asia-Pacific region, such internationally acclaimed foreign media as Far Eastern Economic Review, Newsweek and Time magazine have left Taiwan for Beijing, Hong Kong and Singapore," Hsiao said.

Hsiao made the remark yesterday morning during the question and answer session of the legislature's diplomacy and overseas affairs committee.

According to Michael Chen (陳天爵), director of the Government Information Office's (GIO) Information and Liaison Office, operating costs have played a pivotal role in the foreign media's moving or closing down their bureau offices in Taiwan.

"Since Dow Jones purchased the Asian Wall Street Journal, it made its correspondent of the Far Eastern Economic Review double up as the correspondent of that journal to save costs," Chen said. "Time magazine used to have a bureau office and a correspondent here, but the office was later closed down and that person became a freelancer."

Regarding Newsweek, Chen said that it belongs to the Washington Post group, which has never set up a bureau office here but instead dispatches reporters from Hong Kong to cover important events in Taiwan.

Fewer bureaus

A study conducted by the GIO indicated that, as of last month, 12 European and American mainstream foreign media have bureau offices here, while 61 have bureau offices in Beijing, 35 in Tokyo, 31 in Bangkok and 19 in Hong Kong.

In a bid to lure back foreign media, Hsiao proposed setting up an international press center offering preferential rental fees.

Pledging to study the suggestion, Lee Cher-jean (李雪津), deputy director-general of the GIO, said that while costs may play a role in the foreign media's moving or shutting down their bureaus here, it was not the sole factor.

"Newsworthiness matters more, I reckon," she said. "The government's policies may sound important to local media but they may not be much of a big deal for international media."

While it was rather difficult to invite foreign media, especially those from the US, to visit and report on Taiwan-related issues, Lee said the GIO is looking at alternatives.

"We're thinking of beefing up efforts to invite renowned European academics and European media groups' correspondents based in Asia to visit Taiwan," Lee said.

"In addition, we're working on exploiting newsworthy issues, collecting related information and informing headquarters of international media and their overseas bureaus," she said.

Press freedom

In related news, Taiwan's world ranking in press freedom slipped from last year's 35th to 61st this year, according to the France-based Reporters Without Borders' worldwide press freedom index.

According to the report, Taiwan's decline had much to do with the government's seizure of Next magazine for disclosing an alleged secret account of former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), the prosecution of a journalist for revealing military secrets and of the editor of Scoop magazine for distributing a secret video of a woman politician having sex.

The six bottom-ranked countries were North Korea, Cuba, Burma, Laos, Eritrea and China. The top three ranking countries were Finland, Iceland and the Netherlands. The UK was placed 27th, while the US was 31st.
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