People should be worried about the independence of local media as it carried a large amount of embedded marketing paid for by the central government or China, the Foundation for the Advancement of Media Excellence said on Monday.
The foundation cited US watchdog Freedom House’s recent report on media freedom, which concluded that it was worrisome that Taiwanese newspapers inserted news stories from Chinese state media and published news reports paid for by Chinese authorities without informing readers.
Such practices harmed people’s right to knowledge and could easily affect the local media’s independence, it said.
About 200 “ads” paid by Chinese government agencies were published in local newspapers last year, 119 of which were published following the signing of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) between Taiwan and China in June 2010, said the foundation’s report, which was released last month.
Moreover, Taiwan’s five biggest local newspapers published a total of 1,349 government advertisements in the second half of last year, the foundation’s report said.
In December last year — in the run-up to the Jan. 14 presidential election — the number of ads seen to favor the government reached 295, the highest monthly figure of the second half of last year, it said.
The Taipei City Government, for example, advertised the 2017 Universiade — which it will be hosting — and a major road project 26 times last month, with Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin’s (郝龍斌) photo appearing on more than 10 of the ads.
Other political figures, such as President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and vice president-elect Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), were also frequently seen in similar government ads, the foundation said.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
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