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Watchdog says coverage of Taiwan is biased

"There's a need for people to read what you write and getting into a story from the China angle helps to ensure that. Taiwan's significance is declining."

Kathrin Hille, Taipei Foreign Correspondents' Club president

Western news outlets are increasingly turning to Chinese nationals sympathetic to the Chinese government for reporting in the region amid a sharp decline in the number of foreign journalists in Taiwan, industry figures said yesterday, adding that such developments are leading to either skewed coverage or little to no coverage at all of Taiwan by Western media.

A recent string of allegedly biased reports on Taiwan by such big-name Western media organizations as CNN, The Associated Press (AP) and the Economist have sparked an outcry from all quarters. That reporting was again attacked by media figures yesterday at a forum hosted by the Broadcasting Development Fund, a private media watchdog known for its pro-pan-green-camp views.

"Lee Ming [李閩] is Hong Kong Chinese," said fund director Connie Lin (林育卉), referring to the author of a recent AP article that quotes Chinese propaganda calling Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) "insane" and "scum of the nation."

"Lee may have studied or even grown up in the US, but he obviously harbors biases in his reporting that favor Beijing," she said.

Lee's reporting underscores the consequences of a swelling legion of Chinese journalists in Western news outlets who churn out pro-Beijing articles, she added.

A Japanese national once blacklisted by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government while working as a Kyoto News reporter, Sakai Toru -- now a freelance writer based in Taipei -- questioned Western media's motives in consistently reporting news on Taiwan from Beijing's perspective.

"Why don't the Western media report on US President George W. Bush from a Middle Eastern perspective? -- such as `The leader widely known as the scum of the world made a surprise visit to Iraq yesterday.' Or why, when reporting on Chinese President Hu Jintao [胡錦濤], can't Hu be referred to according to his ranking as the world's fourth-worst dictator?" Sakai said.

`Scum of the Nation'

Paul Tsai (蔡滄波), a news manager at Formosa Television, slammed AP and CNN -- which posted the controversial article on its Web site under the title "Taiwan's `Scum of the Nation' runs for president," in reference to Lu's presidential bid -- for "barbarism," while Lu Shih-hsiang (盧世祥), director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Media Excellence, another media watchdog, called the article "inappropriate."

"The article isn't in keeping [with an otherwise acceptable track record]," Lu said of AP.

Panelists also lamented what they called a steady drain of foreign journalists from Taiwan, saying that while China's view on the country dominates Western coverage of cross-strait affairs, fewer foreign journalists are sticking around to report from Taipei's perspective.

"There are only 20 to 30 foreign journalists here now," Tsai said.

Speaking to the Taipei Times by phone yesterday, Taipei Foreign Correspondents' Club president Kathrin Hille said that although major Western news publications are no longer dispatching as many "staffers" to the country, "I don't think the total number of [foreign journalists] has declined. That always happens in news markets that matter less," she said of the thinning ranks of permanent correspondents from big-name media organizations. "Look, news is a market -- media serve to give their audiences what they think they're interested in and right now, everybody's interested in China," Hille said.

Pragmatic

"There's a need for people to read what you write and getting into a story from the China angle helps to ensure that," she added. "Taiwan's significance is declining."

"But, in a way, that's a good thing -- that means no disasters are coming out of this place," she said.
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