On Dec. 30 last year, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) attended a news conference to mark the first anniversary of the initial outbreak of COVID-19, featuring the first public screening of Us (我們), a documentary film about the pandemic.
In a speech after the screening, Su said: “I think the documentary has overlooked one element: So many of our journalist friends have throughout this year been on the front lines, holding to their posts, and continuing to file detailed and accurate reports. We should let the world know how you, too, have played your part.”
In a conventional media organization, the primary job of reporters is to act as intermediaries, traveling to the scene of a breaking story, and conducting interviews to uncover the truth and inform the public.
After social media companies began to livestream the Central Epidemic Command Center’s (CECC) daily COVID-19 news conference, they reduced the distance between the information source and the audience, but it has also produced a great deal of unwanted and unhealthy “noise.”
During the evolving pandemic situation over the past year, the image of the CECC as “protector of the nation” has become firmly implanted in the minds of the public. As a result, online discussion has gradually shifted to the content of reporters’ questions, the tone in which they asked, phrases they used, clothes, level of politeness, and whether they state their name and organization before posing a question.
The cacophony of online noise reached a crescendo after the CECC’s news conference on March 17 last year, when one reporter asked: “By controlling the number of [COVID-19] screenings, has the government created the false impression that there are no community infections?”
Footage of the conference shows that the reporter did not state her name and organization, and the camera never picked up her face.
However, my own investigation into the incident showed that the reporter received a flurry of messages on her mobile phone after the event, advising her to immediately deactivate her Facebook and other social media accounts.
It was too late. Unfortunately, a photograph of the reporter’s young child was unearthed by a cybervigilante, leading to a threat of harm toward the child and causing the reporter to break down in tears.
The investigation showed that a Facebook user posted the reporter’s question and her name, which was quickly shared more than 4,000 times.
The incident and the adverse direction of online discussion continues to hang over Taiwan’s journalist community like a dark cloud. Social media live feeds have placed the work of reporters under the microscope: As soon as the daily news conference starts, users immediately zero in on reporters’ each and every move, leading to a “chilling effect” within the industry.
A journalist’s vocation involves asking lots of questions. Nevertheless, the comment section under YouTube videos posted by the CECC is awash with comments such as: “Please, don’t ask this again”; “Can you give A-chung [Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中)] a break?”; “Pro-unification media”; “Red media”; “Idiot journalist”; and other similarly abusive language.
Some commenters have even demanded that journalists who are sitting in seats assigned to them and their news organization still state identifying information before asking a question.
In today’s social media driven world, this kind of bullying occurs online and offline. As a result of online vigilantes’ dissatisfaction with a particular question, reporters have been followed to their company’s offices, stalked online, and received abusive telephone calls and messages.
By holding regular news conferences on the pandemic situation, the government has maintained a firm grip on the right to speak and the right of interpretation, while superficially maintaining the illusion of transparency.
Add to this the government’s strong performance in controlling the disease within Taiwan’s borders and the CECC’s image as representative of the “good guys” — while journalists whose job it is to hold the government to account instead are ridiculed as stupid and maligned as Taiwan’s “bad guys.”
The situation has been compounded by social media bullying and the negative direction of online discussion, stymieing a proper, science-based debate over the government’s pandemic response. With the media worn down and obsessively scrutinized, many public health officials do not dare to publicly speak their minds, which further constricts the space for debate.
Now that an increasing number of chinks in the armor of the government’s pandemic response has been brought to the fore, one journalist said: “Perhaps the CECC has done nothing wrong, but it is the role of journalists to push you to do even better. If we are to behave like sycophants, we might as well just leave it to the keyboard warriors.”
It is dangerous if power in a democracy tilts too far in one direction. Nobody is intentionally trying to make things difficult for Taiwan, nor is anyone trying to traduce their country.
As the disease continues to spread through the nation, Taiwanese are all in this together.
Chen Hsiou-feng is an assistant professor in Shih Hsin University’s Department of Journalism.
Translated by Edward Jones
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