Despite Taiwan moving up five places to No. 38 in the World Press Freedom Index released yesterday by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the organization said more needed to be done to address a “toxic” working environment for journalists.
Taiwan’s ranking placed it fourth in the Asia-Pacific region, behind New Zealand (11th), East Timor (17th) and Bhutan (33rd), but ahead of Australia (39th) and South Korea (43rd).
Taiwan was among the 40 countries listed in the index as having a “satisfactory” media environment.
Photo: AFP
The index’s top three spots went to Norway, Denmark and Sweden in that order, with the three Nordic countries considered to have a “good” media environment.
Commenting on the latest index, Cedric Alviani, head of RSF’s East Asia Bureau, said the change in Taiwan’s ranking did not reflect the nation’s improvement, but was rather the result of a modified way of compiling the index.
“This year, Taiwan moving up five ranks does not reflect any significant improvement in terms of press freedom,” Alviani told the Central News Agency during a telephone interview yesterday. “So the movement is purely due to the new system we used to make the index.”
This change of criteria enabled the index to better reflect the current press freedom situation of every country, Alviani said.
While Taiwan has a favorable ranking, its press freedom situation has been “impaired” by some “serious problems,” he said.
Political polarization and the sensational approach that Taiwanese media take to report certain news pose an “obstacle” to the public getting factual and objective information, Alviani added.
RSF had for the past year repeatedly called on the government to take some measures to address these problems, such as providing serious funding for public broadcasters without compromising their editorial independence, he said.
He also said the working environment for journalists was “quite toxic” and that such a situation continued to impact Taiwan’s press freedom.
Many young journalists have changed jobs after a few years of work because they were underpaid and overworked, and because it was not possible for them to do quality reporting as they had been expected to do, Alviani said, citing RSF’s past interviews and discussions with Taiwanese journalists.
In East Asia, the press freedom situation is “getting worse,” he said.
In particular, the ranking of Hong Kong showed “one of the biggest downfalls ever in our index over the past 20 years,” Alviani said.
Hong Kong ranked 148th in this year’s index, slipping 68 spots from No. 80 in the previous ranking.
“One could be afraid that in a few years, let’s say before the end of the mandate [of the Sino-British Joint Declaration], freedom of the press in Hong Kong would be no better than freedom of the press in the rest of the country,” he said, referring to China, which finished at 175th in the index.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has
China is mischaracterizing UN Resolution 2758 for its own interests by conflating it with its “one China” principle, US Deputy Assistant Secretary for China and Taiwan Mark Lambert said on Monday. Speaking at a seminar held by the German Marshall Fund, Lambert called for support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in the international community at a time when China is increasingly misusing Resolution 2758. The resolution had a clear impact when it changed who occupied the China seat at the UN, Lambert said. “Today, however, the PRC [People’s Republic of China] increasingly mischaracterizes and misuses Resolution 2758 to serve its own interests,” Lambert said. “Beijing