The National Communications Commission (NCC) last week unanimously rejected CTi News’ license renewal application, in a decision that should be a milestone in Taiwan’s journalistic history, as it provides an opportunity for the commission to establish standards for journalistic ethics and editorial autonomy in news media.
The commissioners’ decision was based on CTi News’ repeated breaches of media regulations; its malfunctioning internal control mechanisms; the severe interference of its largest shareholder, Want Want China Times Media Group founder Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明); and its inability to show that it could improve.
CTi News has been fined NT$11.53 million (US$400,306 at the current exchange rate) for 25 breaches of media regulations since its license renewal in 2014.
Complaints regarding its content increased from 72 in 2017 — less than 5 percent of all complaints the NCC received that year — to 962 last year, or about 31 percent of all complaints.
These factors demonstrate CTi News’ lack of journalistic expertise, as well as its broken internal controls and self-discipline mechanisms, the commission said.
Furthermore, based on evidence presented at an administrative hearing on Oct. 26 and a meeting between commissioners and CTi News on Nov. 4, Tsai had intervened in the news production process directly and indirectly.
In 2018, the full-time post of managing director in the news department was left unfilled for five months before Tsai’s special assistant, Chiu Chia-yu (邱佳瑜), was appointed, a move that breached the channel’s independent convention.
The management did not object to Tsai’s decision to interfere in the news department, which again confirmed that it lacked proper internal controls.
Although the channel’s management made eight commitments during the license renewal process, CTi News did not specify how it would prevent improper intervention by its largest shareholder.
There were also no internal controls that allowed for the questioning or examination of such practices.
The Satellite Broadcasting Act (衛星廣播電視法) gives the commission the authority to reject a channel’s license renewal application and the commission provided sufficient reasons for not renewing CTi News’ license.
Some have said that the commission should have renewed the license, while urging CTi News to improve its internal controls.
However, when CTi News renewed its license in 2014 under then-president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration, six advisory members of the commission voted against the renewal, while five voted for it.
CTi News had the opportunity to reform then, but it did not. Therefore, the commission’s decision not to grant the license renewal is reasonable.
The problems that led to CTi News’ failed bid to renew its license are ubiquitous in Taiwan’s news industry.
Viewers often criticize the poor quality of the nation’s news, including the excessive use of dashcam and closed-circuit television footage and unverified information from the Internet.
Owners’ gross interference in news content also encourages divisions in society.
The CTi News case provided a chance for the NCC to establish a standard for the license renewal process, but it did not seize the opportunity.
CTi TV said the NCC decision was “political persecution,” and that “under the NCC’s current standards, every news station in Taiwan should be shut down.”
To eliminate any perception of political persecution, the NCC should quickly establish a model for license renewal evaluations.
Wei Jia-yu is a postgraduate student who holds a master’s degree from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
The EU’s biggest banks have spent years quietly creating a new way to pay that could finally allow customers to ditch their Visa Inc and Mastercard Inc cards — the latest sign that the region is looking to dislodge two of the most valuable financial firms on the planet. Wero, as the project is known, is now rolling out across much of western Europe. Backed by 16 major banks and payment processors including BNP Paribas SA, Deutsche Bank AG and Worldline SA, the platform would eventually allow a German customer to instantly settle up with, say, a hotel in France
On August 6, Ukraine crossed its northeastern border and invaded the Russian region of Kursk. After spending more than two years seeking to oust Russian forces from its own territory, Kiev turned the tables on Moscow. Vladimir Putin seemed thrown off guard. In a televised meeting about the incursion, Putin came across as patently not in control of events. The reasons for the Ukrainian offensive remain unclear. It could be an attempt to wear away at the morale of both Russia’s military and its populace, and to boost morale in Ukraine; to undermine popular and elite confidence in Putin’s rule; to
A traffic accident in Taichung — a city bus on Sept. 22 hit two Tunghai University students on a pedestrian crossing, killing one and injuring the other — has once again brought up the issue of Taiwan being a “living hell for pedestrians” and large vehicle safety to public attention. A deadly traffic accident in Taichung on Dec. 27, 2022, when a city bus hit a foreign national, his Taiwanese wife and their one-year-old son in a stroller on a pedestrian crossing, killing the wife and son, had shocked the public, leading to discussions and traffic law amendments. However, just after the
With escalating US-China competition and mutual distrust, the trend of supply chain “friend shoring” in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the fragmentation of the world into rival geopolitical blocs, many analysts and policymakers worry the world is retreating into a new cold war — a world of trade bifurcation, protectionism and deglobalization. The world is in a new cold war, said Robin Niblett, former director of the London-based think tank Chatham House. Niblett said he sees the US and China slowly reaching a modus vivendi, but it might take time. The two great powers appear to be “reversing carefully
RSS