Two studies recently outsourced by the General Information Office (GIO) have incited widespread debate, and are therefore worth a few comments.
Due to space restrictions, I will not go into a theoretical discussion, but simply offer the UK experience as material for further discussion.
In February, the British parliament's Culture, Media and Sport Committee began a new round of investigations into media self censorship. In one of the evidence sessions held last month, the editors of four newspapers were invited to explain their management concepts.
The industry opposes legislative restrictions on the media, but the editors said that if lawsuits by famous people against media became a trend, it would lead to courts in practice placing restrictions on the media by the precedent of their verdicts.
The editors said that "It would be endlessly better to have parliament do so [restrict the media], rather than the courts."
These investigations are nothing new. There have been four after World War II. Among those, the ones in 1947, 1961 and 1974 were Royal Commissions on the Press. They were all large investigations, especially the third one, which was given resources to the equivalent of over NT$200 million.
Raymond Snoddy, formerly a journalist with the Financial Times responsible for media reporting, and now media editor of the Times, says regarding these investigations that "If the media can ignore them, they will. If they can't ignore them, they will try to procrastinate. Only when politicians seem to be unusually determined to legislate, will the media resort to self censorship."
By the late 1980s, a fourth threat from politicial circles led to the end of the UK's Press Council, which was reorganized as the Press Complaint Commission.
The functions of this commission may now have been exhausted, rekindling the old parliamentary debate. It is not certain that it will bring anything new.
Taiwan's government wants to outsource the evaluation of television and newspapers, but judging from the UK's experience, the move is too late.
On the other hand, the media's unrestrained criticism seems to be appropriate and just the kind of criticism that could be expected from media circles.
Judging from the UK's history of grand government-led media investigations producing only mediocre results, we are probably safe in predicting that the GIO's wanton actions in the end won't bring any substantial results.
Furthermore, the separation between the executive and legislative branches in this country is far from comparable with the full powers of the UK's cabinet.
There's no way the GIO's kindergarten style will shake press freedom.
Feng Chien-san is a professor of journalism at National Chengchi University.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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