Students at two of the nation’s top universities are calling for a boycott of CtiTV News (中天新聞) in protest against what they called “biased news coverage.”
A National Taiwan University (NTU) student launched the initiative on the university’s official Facebook page urging the school to ban broadcasts of CtiTV News at all student cafeterias due to its “biased” coverage, adding that students expect to be able to access quality media content on campus.
The student also talked about the possibility of holding a referendum on campus on whether to ban CtiTV broadcasts on campus, if the initiative is supported by more than 1,000 people.
As of press time last night, the initiative has garnered the support of more than 4,000 people.
A group of students at National Chengchi University (NCCU) are also urging their schoolmates to “take back the TV remote controls” at school cafeterias, after it was reported that a resident near the university would enter school cafeterias, take the remote control, switch the channel to CtiTV News and leave.
The post on the resident’s behavior drew nearly 200 comments from students, with some saying that “CtiTV is reaching its claws into university campuses.”
Others proposed switching to Formosa TV News instead or removing the numbers “5” and “2” from the remote control, as CtiTV News is on Channel 52 on cable.
National Taiwan University Student Association president Michelle Wu (吳奕柔) said that while she understands that students are angry about TV news channels that do not follow journalists’ code of ethics and spread misinformation, the university might be accused of imposing a gag order if it unilaterally bans broadcasts of CtiTV News.
To protect freedom of speech on campus, the association has reached an agreement with caterers of school cafeterias that students should be allowed to choose the channels they want to watch while dining there, she said.
The association would also respect students’ right to launch a referendum initiative on banning CtiTV News on campus, but the university does not have any regulation to legalize such action, she said.
The university administration is also not obligated to enforce it, she added.
“Personally, I do not read China Times or watch CtiTV because of its biased news coverage and [reports] heaping praises on a certain politician. However, banning certain TV news stations would hurt the university’s reputation of being a free and democratic academic institution. It is better to use practical actions — switching channels — to boycott CtiTV,” she said.
NCCU said that a fight over a remote control at a school cafeteria happened on Friday last week, when two or three students quarreled with a woman who insisted on watching CtiTV News.
The university said that its cafeterias are run by outside caterers and the televisions are provided for in-house diners, which include students, staff and local residents.
The televisions at the cafeterias are usually tuned into the Public Television Service channel and sports channels, it said, adding that diners are free to switch channels as they see fit.
CtiTV News was fined NT$200,000 in January by the National Communications Commission for failing to fact-check its reports about then-Kaohsiung mayoral candidate Chen Chi-mai’s (陳其邁) rally in Cishan District (旗山) in November last year.
The commission today is scheduled to review complaints against a CtiTV news report, in which a farmer claimed that 2 million tonnes of pomeloes were dumped into the Zengwen Reservoir because of plummeting prices.
‘EFFECTIVE DETERRENCE’: If the Biden administration suspends arms sales to Taiwan, the military could still ready a nimble fighting force for defense, an analyst said The “US Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific” last week sparked debate among analysts after US President Donald Trump declassified the document 20 years ahead of schedule. Trump on Tuesday last week released the document that had governed US strategic action in the region since the US leader approved its use in 2018. The document, which outlines US priorities in the region, emphasizes the importance of defending Taiwan against military aggression and facilitating the country’s development of asymmetric strategies and capabilities. The overall directive of the document is for the US to prevent China from establishing sustained air and sea dominance inside the first
SECOND RULING: Israeli-American Oren Shlomo Mayer refused to sign a court transcript, complained about the court translator and said the trial had been unfair The High Court yesterday upheld New Taipei City District Court’s verdicts on four men convicted last year in connection with the 2018 murder and dismemberment of a Canadian citizen on the banks of the Sindian River (新店溪). It found American-Israeli Oren Shlomo Mayer and American Ewart Odane Bent guilty of homicide and the abandonment and destruction of a corpse, with Mayer sentenced to life in prison and Bent given a term of 12 years and six months, for the death of Sanjay Ryan Ramgahan, whose body parts were found in a riverside park under Zhongzheng Bridge in New Taipei’s Yonghe
ALLEVIATING FEARS: The CECC would only announce public places where it is difficult to identify everyone there at the same time as the couple, minister Chen said The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday announced six places where two locally infected COVID-19 cases had visited between Thursday last week and Sunday, urging people who had been at the places at the same time to monitor their health. The couple, cases 838, a doctor, and 839, his nurse girlfriend, were reported by the center on Tuesday. The doctor had treated a patient with COVID-19 last week before he began suffering symptoms on Friday, while the nurse began suffering symptoms on Saturday. They work in the same hospital in northern Taiwan, but the nurse had not worked with COVID-19 patients, so
A lawyer and a prosecutor yesterday castigated what they called a lenient ruling by the High Court on Luo Wen-shan (羅文山), whose prison sentence was reduced to two years, which he does not need to serve, after he was convicted for receiving illegal political donations from China to meddle in Taiwan’s elections. Investigators found that Luo, who retired from the army with the rank of lieutenant general, had accepted NT$8.38 million (US$294,604 at the current exchange rate) under the guise of political contributions from Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference member Xu Zhiming (許智明) and people in Hong Kong from 2008 to