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GIO chief rebuts allegations of favoritism in awards

Government Information Office (GIO) Minister Pasuya Yao (姚文智) said yesterday that more nominations will be made for the TV category of the annual Golden Bell Awards.

Yao called a press conference yesterday morning in response to criticism that he was interfering in the awards process.

The criticism was triggered by his announcement on Tuesday that he was holding back the list of nominations for Best Drama, which led some in the media to accuse him of favoritism.

The Golden Bell Awards are divided into three sections -- radio, TV and children's programs and the award ceremonies will be held for those categories on Nov. 5, Nov. 9 and Nov. 12, respectively.

For the TV section, nominations in other 14 categories were announced on Tuesday as scheduled.

"We delayed the Best Drama nominations because we are trying to increase the number of nominees," Yao said. "I assure you that all the current nominees for Best Drama will remain on the list."

He also said he knew nothing about a reported leak of the list of nominees in that category. Some newspaper reporters have copies of the list even though the GIO has not officially released it.

"I really do not know anything about a leak but I will ask other officials to figure it out," Yao said.

He said that he had read newspaper reports that senior TV producers Chou You (周遊) and Wang Wei-chung (王偉忠) were upset with how the GIO was nominating Best Drama candidates.

"We want to make everybody happy," Yao said. "Since senior producers are not happy with how we have handled the process, we would be more than happy to spend more time and come up with more candidates so that we will not miss any outstanding performers."
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