National Communications Commission (NCC) chairman Su Yeong-chin (蘇永欽) said yesterday the NCC will stipulate and promulgate guidelines to help implement the Election and Recall Law of Civil Servants (公職人員選舉罷免法) within a week.
The law, which proposes to regulate election news coverage, including talk shows, during the time of the campaign, was passed on Tuesday.
Su said that he has not had time to peruse the newly passed law. But he said that the Central Election Commission (CEC) remains the highest authority in election-related affairs and will be primarily responsible for recording news programs or talk shows.
He added that the NCC in principle respects the media's freedom of speech. In the past, the commission has asked the media to exercise self-discipline while producing news content, Su said.
Su noted that while most countries are inclined to follow the principle of equal time in regulating election coverage, they tend to set different standards for private television and public television stations.
He said when the commission has doubts about certain news program, the commission is obligated to provide taped materials to the commission.
Su made the comments at the legislative Sci-Tech and Information Committee yesterday.
During the meeting, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) also questioned the commission's policy of issuing operational licenses for mobile television service.
Lai said while the commission is able to regulate mobile television service, it has no way to regulate the content provided over Internet protocol television service (IPTV).
"I wonder how mobile television can stand the competition of IPTV, which can be accessed by anyone, anytime and anywhere," Lai said.
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