Denouncing the shooting and broadcasting of footage of a gangster by TVBS, critics yesterday said the incident highlighted the need for reform of the media with some demanding that TVBS general manager Lee Tao (李濤) step down.
Association of Taiwan Journalists (ATJ) president Chen Hsiao-yi (
Chen said the incident, in which TVBS reporter Shih Chen-kang (
PHOTO: CNA
The incident has not only destroyed the reputation of a reporter, it has also left TVBS' journalistic reputation damaged, she said, adding that all members of the media should conduct serious soul-searching on the matter.
The ATJ head said it was unfair that only the reporter had been fired, while his superiors, including the TVBS management, got off scot-free.
The Taiwan Bugle Society yesterday urged the National Communications Commission (NCC) to probe the ownership structure of TVBS and revoke its operating license if it were found to be foreign-owned.
Society chairman Chung Nien-huang (
The station could be subject to a fine of between NT$200,000 (US$6,250) and NT$2 million according to the Satellite and Broadcasting Law (衛星廣播電視法). The channel could also face a shut-down of between three days and three months.
Meanwhile, shouting "Shut Down TVBS!" and "Shame on TVBS!," angry pan-green Taipei City councilors and members of a pro-independence group yesterday urged a boycott of the station.
Although TVBS fired Shi and chief correspondent Chang Yu-kun (張裕坤) and claimed that it had not initially been informed of the source of the video, Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Taipei City Councilor Chien Yu-yen (簡余晏) and Democratic Progressive Party Taipei City (DPP) Councilor Chuang Rei-hsiung (莊瑞雄) condemned Lee for shifting all the blame onto the two reporters.
"The reporters were just scapegoats in this incident. Lee and the station will continue pressuring reporters to come up with sensational scoops," said Chien at the protest held in front of the station's building yesterday.
The protesters pledged to stage a larger demonstration to air if the NCC failed to give a penalty to the station that meets the public expectation, Chuang said.
Accusations that TVBS is 100 percent owned by Chinese capital was brought up by DPP lawmakers.
"The fact that TVBS is controlled by China explains why it often runs footage smearing Taiwan and its image. For example, a TVBS report accusing Taiwanese duck farmers of using tar to defeather their birds was aimed at promoting roast duck [imported from] Beijing," DPP Legislator Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) said at a press conference.
He was referring to a TVBS report broadcast in December.
The Department of Health and Council of Agriculture later conducted an inspection of duck farms and found no evidence that tar was being used at any of them.
TSU lawmakers told a separate press conference that TVBS had made "an almost unforgivable mistake."
"Given the Chinese funding of TVBS, China might be an accomplice in the matter, in an attempt to influence Taiwan's political and economic development as well as social stability," TSU Legislator Tseng Tsahn-deng (
The Government Information Office (GIO) has previously questioned the station's ownership structure, arguing it is 100 percent foreign-owned.
TVBS management has conceded the fact that the company is completely financed by investment from Hong Kong, which is effectively admitting that it is flouting the law, because foreign investment in Taiwanese broadcasting companies cannot exceed 50 percent.
Former GIO head Pasuya Yao (姚文智) yesterday urged the public to pay attention to the transfer of media ownership, saying that the TVBS case may be the tip of the iceberg.
However, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) urged the public to give TVBS an opportunity to reform itself.
Contrary to the pan-green-camp's strong demand for action from the NCC, pan-blue lawmakers asked the NCC not to involve itself in disciplining the media.
"It's a matter concerning freedom of speech. All media have to exert self-discipline when using its right of freedom of speech, and political forces should keep their hands off TVBS," Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Joanna Lei (
"It's true that TVBS made a mistake, but it's also true that public security has been deteriorating," People First Party Legislator Hwang Yih-jiau (黃義交) said.
Additional reporting by CNA
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater