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Ghostly news can scare your children, group says

A media watchdog group yesterday urged the nation's news media to review their presentation of supernatural and superstitious themes.

A report by the Broadcasting Development Fund claimed that "tactless" news stories relating to the spiritual world -- coinciding last month with "ghost month" -- increased in number.

"When too much focus is paid to `supernatural' stories, more significant news events are downplayed," said Chuang Po-chung (莊伯仲), an assistant professor at Chinese Culture University's department of journalism.

"For instance, the news about President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) video conference with the UN Correspondents Association [last month] didn't get the coverage it deserved because of the heavy coverage of a model who committed suicide," he said.

The fund also showed a video clip of a sneak preview for a Hong Kong horror movie that was shown during a nightly news program. The trailer included a scene in which a character swallows dumplings implied to have been made from human babies.

"Previews of horror movies on nightly TV news should be cracked down on because such programming is in violation of the Broadcasting and Television Law's (廣電法) program rating system," said Alicia Wong (王育敏), spokesperson for the Child Welfare League Foundation.

"When a news report concerns phenomena that are not immediately understood, opinions from a wide range of sources, such as academics or government authorities, should be collected and presented to the public," Chuang said. "Instead, most news reports choose only to include opinions from self-described spiritual experts who have no credentials whatsoever," he added.
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