The Presidential Office said yesterday it was attempting to determine whether the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) violated journalistic ethics by superimposing a purported picture of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) motorcade onto another photo in its Monday issue.
Liberty Times spokesman Jackson Su (蘇宇暉) said the paper had made it clear in a note appearing next to the picture that the photo was a composite.
The photo in question illustrated a story on Ma, who doubles as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman, stumping for KMT candidates ahead of the local elections. His motorcade has been speeding along fast lanes of freeways while officials used loudspeakers to order vehicles to make way, the report said.
Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) said the photo used was not one of Ma’s convoy, but rather that of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
The leading vehicle in Ma’s motorcade is a BMW740 and Ma rides in a Ford E350, while the lead car in the composite photograph was a Ford and the presidential vehicle a BMW — a formation matching that used during the Chen presidency, Wang said.
Pointing to a recent controversy caused by the Apple Daily’s News-in-Motion Web feature — which uses animated graphics to reconstruct events — Wang said that the public and media would judge whether the Liberty Times failed to meet journalistic ethics.
Wang said that Su had misquoted him as saying that Ma’s motorcade was traveling in the fast lane because the shoulder was too small.
“I never said that,” Wang said. “What I said about the shoulder applied to the situation in general, not this specific incident.”
Su said the paper used three photographs to make the picture: an overcrowded freeway as a background, the leading vehicle and the presidential car.
Su said the leading and presidential vehicles were from Ma’s motorcade and had nothing to do with Chen.
Following the Liberty Times report on Monday, Wang apologized for the inconvenience caused by Ma’s motorcade.
The Presidential Office later said that Ma was not in the car when the motorcade was rushing back to Taipei, but flying from Hsinchu to Chiayi on the presidential plane.
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