Sun, Mar 20, 2011 page8

• Proposed amendments a step back

  • By Lin Lih-yun, Wei Ti, Chad Liu 林麗雲、魏玓、劉昌德
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  Last week the Cabinet finally approved draft amendments to the Public Television Act (公共電視法). The proposed amendments do away with guaranteed funding for the Public Television Service (PTS) group of channels. Regulations about the provision of channels for minority groups have disappeared from the draft law and the number of members on the PTS Foundation’s board of directors has been changed arbitrarily, as has the threshold for their election.

  The draft amendments are completely contrary to the principles under which government officials years ago pledged to set up a public television service. The draft departs from the idea of a “public” service both in its content and in the procedure through which it was formulated. If enacted, it would become a “non-public television act” and would dismantle the public television system that has been built through the hard work of so many people.

  The present government has been in office for two-and-a-half years now. In this time, two successive Government Information Office (GIO) ministers — Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) and Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) — have spoken at a number of government--organized symposiums about how to amend the Public Television Act, declaring each time that the PTS would receive greater funding and that its budget would be guaranteed. They also said there must continue to be channels dedicated to minority communities such as Hakka speakers and Aborigines. These principles were also embodied in draft amendments the GIO presented to the Cabinet. Up to and including the public hearing that the GIO convened in January, there was a firm consensus between government officials, PTS employees, experts, academics and civic groups that these conditions were essential for the further development of the PTS. So it came as a shock when these policies were suddenly changed in the draft amendments announced by the Cabinet earlier this month.

  The proposals completely overturn the consensus that has existed between various sectors for many years, as well as previous policy announcements. The Cabinet has taken a wrong turn procedurally by breaking with the consensus that was formed at the public hearing, instead formulating its proposals behind closed doors. At the same time, several key articles of the draft law would completely reverse the orientation of the public television system by shrinking and narrowing it. The amended law would still be called the “Public Television Act,” but it would not be “public” at all.

  The Cabinet’s draft amendments to the act have at least three major flaws.

  First, in relation to funding, the draft amendments merely rule that it is to be adjusted according to the scale of the PTS’ operations, its work plans and the price index. Gone is the clear consensus between various sectors that the PTS’ annual funding should be raised to at least NT$2.5 billion (US$84.6 million). The new regulations would allow the regulatory authority, ie the GIO, to judge and decide how much funding the PTS should get. Apart from preventing PTS from improving its service to the public, this gives politicians the power to decide its funding, and that could open the door for party political interference in its operations.

  The official explanation for the amendments is that they are aimed at stabilizing the PTS Foundation’s sources of annual funding and that they take into consideration that the foundation is responsible for running several channels belonging to the PTS group, so that it can provide an appropriate public television service for all citizens. These promises are so far removed from the actual content of the Cabinet’s draft amendments as to make them a sheer pretense.

  Second, clauses defining the purpose of the community stations and providing safeguards for them have been deleted from the draft amended law. This would make things even harder for Taiwan Hakka Television and Taiwan Indigenous Television, whose operations have been in difficulty for years because their status is poorly defined and their funding is unstable. Despite these difficult conditions, the Hakka and indigenous channels have achieved a certain degree of independence in serving their communities, while their existence has made the PTS’ service and content genuinely diverse. However, these gains could all be lost through the Cabinet’s proposed amendments, which overlook minority communities’ rights to have their own media.

  Third, in 2009 a legal amendment promoted by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) raised the number of seats on the PTS Foundation’s board of directors from 17 to 21, but the new draft law cuts the number back to between 13 and 17. The Cabinet explains that this change is intended to make the board function more efficiently and to make it more responsive to public service needs and more flexible in adjusting the stations’ operational orientation. But how can it be that what the government said was right two years ago is suddenly wrong now?

  At the same time, the amendments lower the threshold for election to the board, but again without sufficient explanation. We are not against making reasonable adjustments to the number of the PTS Foundation’s directors, and we think the threshold for election is -something that can be discussed, but these repeated and arbitrary amendments put forward by the KMT within such a short period are causing confusion within the PTS, as well as incalculable social consequences. What’s more, they certainly open the whole process up to accusations of political manipulation. The KMT owes the public an explanation and apology for these amendments.

  Since the KMT came back into power, there has been a series of disputes between the PTS board and senior personnel that have tarnished the image of the organization. Now the Cabinet has come up with proposed amendments to the Public Television Act that threaten to downscale the PTS and that overlook the community channels. These amendments amount to a death knell for the PTS, so we call on the Cabinet not to go ahead with submitting them to the legislature for deliberation. The Cabinet should also offer a proper explanation of the thinking behind its policies and tell the public what complementary legislative measures it has in mind. If the Cabinet insists on submitting its draft amendments to the legislature and mobilizing its party caucus to make sure they pass into law, it will just go to prove that while the KMT is incapable of upgrading Taiwan’s media industry, it is capable of killing off the PTS, and seriously damaging the public’s right to decent broadcasting, all in the space of a few years.

  Lin Lih-yun is director of the Graduate Institute of Journalism at National Taiwan University. Wei Ti is an assistant professor of mass communications at National Chiao Tung University. Chad Liu is an assistant professor in the Department of Communications at National Chung Cheng University. All are executive committee members of the Campaign for Media Reform.

  TRANSLATED BY JULIAN CLEGG
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