Some of them even charge that the government's denial of the license renewal applications is aimed at teaching a lesson to those who refuse to produce more positive coverage of the ruling party, especially with the year-end local elections approaching.
Denial
Both the premier and GIO deny these speculations.
Hsieh said that opposition parties' doubts and allegations are an insult to both the review-committee members and the TV channels that passed the evaluation and had their license renewed.
He also said that the GIO would have committed malfeasance if it failed to review the operating licenses of media outlets because it remains the media supervisory body until the proposed National Communications Commission (NCC) has been established.
Stressing that the GIO is performing its duty in accordance with the law as enacted by the legislature, GIO Minister Pasuya Yao (姚文智) said that he is willing to step down if his office is found to have interfered with press freedom.
He said that the legislature should make efforts to amend the law if they think the supervisory mechanism is flawed.
To prove that its review and decision-making processes were handled by professionals and experts, the GIO made public the names of seven of the 12 committee members, with their consent. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus later released all 12 names.
Lu Shih-hsiang (
"It does not have anything to do with politics," he says.
"If there had been any political interference at all, then it was the GIO's request that we accept as many renewal applications as possible. Because of this request, we rejected fewer applications than we intended," he said.
Proof
Lu said that a business channel owned by Global TV also failed to pass the preliminary review, thus proving that the committee's decision has not been a political consideration. The chairman of the station is former DPP lawmaker Chang Chun-hung (
"If the review process was political, as they have claimed, Global TV would have passed the review," he said.
All the legislative caucuses agreed that the establishment of the NCC would be the cure-all for keeping the chaotic situation in the media in check, and vowed to push passage of the bill during the upcoming legislative session.
However, they have been bickering over the committee's structure.
While opposition caucuses insist that committee members be decided by each party's number of legislative seats, the DPP caucus argued that such a make-up would only let political power interfere in the proposed independent body.
"If the committee is to be made up of political powers, we'd rather not have it at all," said DPP caucus whip Lai Ching-te (
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