In the past few days, the Government Information Office (GIO) has faced an uproar over its alleged efforts to control and censor the media through evaluating reporting and also by conducting research into TV viewership and print media readership.
Faced with widespread skepticism about its proposals, even from DPP lawmakers, the GIO announced Wednesday that it was calling an immediate halt to its research efforts. Even President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) asked the office to explain its actions and he promised that the government would refrain from media censorship.
The entire controversy highlights two important points -- the continuing awkwardness of the GIO's role and the ongoing search for a consensus on the meaning of press freedom in the nation's young democracy.
The GIO's reputation was forever damaged by its role as the primary tool through which the former KMT government imposed media censorship and trampled press and speech freedoms during the martial law era and beyond. It has just about lost all hope of ever winning the public's trust in its ability to be impartial. Its schizophrenic mission -- to be both the mouthpiece of the central government and the agency which regulates the media -- is basically impossible to reconcile.
Director General Arthur Iap (葉興國) was absolutely right to ask "Why can't the fifth estate [the general public] monitor the fourth estate?" But unfortunately the public can't trust his agency to fairly represent the "fifth estate," even when it appoints independent non-profit research groups to carry out the actual rating and research work.
The media, just like the government it monitors, also needs watching. But there are several monitoring mechanisms already in existence. Market competition is one such mechanism. If a newspaper repeatedly makes factual errors or fails to report on matters of interest and concern to the general public, it will sooner or later be discarded by readers and eliminated from the market.
The law is a second-tier monitoring mechanism. For example, a newspaper that prints false reports that injure the reputation of an individual or company risks lawsuits. Of course, such risks can be eliminated if the reporting is made only after responsible and thorough investigation. Another example of this mechanism is that the law also prohibits reporting the names or identities of juvenile delinquents.
Each and every responsible member of the media must exercise self-discipline based on high professional and moral standards. For example, during the war against Iraq, the Iraqi government released photos of corpses of US soldiers to the news media. A responsible and decent media organization should have exercised self-discipline and refrained from broadcasting or publishing such photos.
So far, these mechanisms have not been adequate in disciplining the media. Members of the fourth estate have apparently lost sight of how to do their jobs and how to make best use of the precious and hard-won freedom in the post-martial-law era. Other supplemental mechanisms are in order. But not from or by the GIO.
DPP legislative caucus leader Chen Chi-mai (
Vice President Annette Lu (
How to ensure that the media meet that responsibility is an all important task.
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